rMH- 


U  N  I  V  ER5  ITY 
OF  ILLI  NOIS 

170 

W15u 

1897 


UNCLE  HENRY’S 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY 


3Y 

HENRY  WALLACE 

EDITOR  OP  “WALLACES’  FARMER,”  DES  MOINES,  IA. 
AUTHOR  OF  “CLOVER  CULTURE,”  ETC. 


SECOND  EDITION. 


DBS  MOINES,  IOWA 

WALLACE  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
1897 


no 

/fu. 

1*97 


PREFACE. 


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Twenty  years  hence  the  farm  boy  of  to-day 
will  mainly  control  the  business  of  the  state  and 
nation,  as  it  is  now  controlled  by  the  farm  boy 
of  twenty-five  years  ago.  To  aid  in  starting  this 
farm  boy  on  the  right  track  and  make  his  path¬ 
way  plainer  and  easier,  is  the  object  of  this  pub¬ 
lication  in  its  present  form.  I  have  known  how 
the  farm  boy  feels,  for  I  have  experienced  his 
isolation,  his  hopes,  his  ambitions,  his  lack  of 
experience  and  knowledge  of  the  world,  and 
hence  I  know  his  need  of  a  kindly,  sympathetic 
friend  outside  of  the  family,  who  will  suggest 
rather  than  advise,  guide  rather  than  lead,  who 
would  rather  commend  than  censure,  and  who 
is  a  boy  in  feeling  though  a  man  in  years  and 
experience. 

Nothing  was  further  from  the  writer’s  thought 
at  the  beginning  of  these  letters  than  to  write  a 
book.  The  first  was  merely  an  effort  to  make 
matters  smoother  between  a  father  and  his  son. 
The  rest  followed,  I  scarcely  know  how.  This 
book  wrote  itself;  like  Topsy,  “itgrowed.”  The 
marked  favor  with  which  the  letters  as  first  pub¬ 
lished  in  Wallaces’  Farmer  have  been  received, 
and  the  desire  expressed  on  every  hand  to  have 


them  in  permanent  form,  leads  me  to  hope  that 
it  will  do  its  part  in  fitting  the  farm  boy  for  his 
high  destiny.  The  farm  boy  with  his  robust 
health,  his  independent  spirit,  his  training  in  the 
primary  virtues  of  industry,  economy  and  uj)- 
rightness,  and  his  opportunities  for  clear  think¬ 
ing,  may  be  the  ruling  power  in  this  nation  if  he 
is  rightly  guided.  To  do  his  part  in  guiding  the 
farm  boy  aright  is  the  desire  and  ambition  of 

Henry  Wallace. 


Editor  W  places’  Farmer, 
Des  Moines,  Iowa, 
September,  1897. 


CHAPTER  I. 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  FATHER. 

My  Dear  Boy: 

It  has  occurred  to  me  that  matters 
might  not  be  going  just  exactly  right  be¬ 
tween  you  and  your  father,  and  that  a 
word  from  one  who  has  been  both  farm 
boy  and  father  might  do  good  to  both  of 
you.  I  do  not  think  for  a  moment  that 
there  is  anything  seriously  wrong,  only 
that  neither  of  you  are  as  happy  in  your 
relations  with  each  other  as  you  ought  to 
be  and  can  be.  I  take  it  for  granted  that 
you  love  and  respect  your  father;  not  quite 
in  the  same  way  that  you  love  your  mother, 
because  the  affection  that  you  bear  to  the 
one  is  distinctly  different  from  that  which 
you  bear  to  the  other,  and  must  be  in  the 
very  nature  of  things.  I  take  it  that  you 
have  a  good  father  who  loves  you  dearly 


6 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


and  who  above  all  things  else  desires  that 
you  be  a  strong,  true,  brave,  noble  man, 
who  will  bear  his  name  with  honor  when 
he  is  lying  in  his  grave.  I  know  he  thinks 
more  of  you  than  he  does  of  the  farm  and 
all  that  is  on  it,  saving  always  your  moth¬ 
er  and  your  brothers  and  sisters.  I  take 
it  that  you  are  a  good  boy,  and  there  is  no 
reason  why  you  and  your  father  should 
not  be  as  happy  together  as  people  can  be 
in  this  world.  If  you  are  not,  it  is  likely 
that  both  of  you  are  somewhat  to  blame, 
and  I  will  venture  a  guess  as  to  why  you 
are  not  as  happy  as  I  would  like  to  see 
you.  1 

You,  perhaps,  think  your  father  is  need¬ 
lessly  exacting  in  some  things.  He  wants 
that  stable  cleaned  out  promptly  and  thor¬ 
oughly,  and  wants  the  pigs  fed  just  so 
every  time,  whether  it  is  wet  or  dry,  or  a 
good  day  to  go  fishing  or  a  bad  one.  He 
wants  the  cows  milked  clean,  does  not 
want  any  loud  talking  while  milking,  and 
he  wants  the  milk  cared  for  just  so,  and  if 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  FATHER. 


7 


you  fail  in  any  of  those  things  he  does  not 
like  it,  and  you  do  not  see  why  he  should 
be  so  particular.  Now,  I  will  tell  you  why. 
Your  father  was  probably  a  little  bit  care¬ 
less  himself  when  a  boy;  he  sees  the  mis¬ 
take;  he  knows  how  difficult  it  was  for 
him  to  get  over  this  habit,  and  he  does 
not  want  you  to  have  the  same  kind  of 
trouble. 

You  do  not  see  why  he  disapproves  of 
your  going  out  with  a  lot  of  other  boys 
whom  you  regard  as  good  fellows,  but  who 
have  some  bad  habits,  such,  for  example, 
as  using  profane  language  or  indulging  in 
obscene  talk.  Now,  I  will  tell  you  why 
he  does  not  want  you  to  go  with  those 
boys.  He  possibly  went  more  or  less  with 
that  class  of  boys  himself  and  knows  from 
experience  that  they  are  not  the  kind  of 
boys  with  whom  you  ought  to  associate. 

He  objects  to  your  going  out  at  night 
unless  it  be  to  some  literary,  or  to  make  a 
social  visit  to  youi  neighbor.  Now,  he  is 
perfectly  right  about  this  because  he  has 


8 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


had  experience  and  you  have  not.  You 
do  not  see  why  he  insists  on  your  going 
to  church  every  Sabbath  and  to  Sabbath- 
school,  even  if  you  are  tired  and  sleepy 
and  would  like  a  good,  long  day’s  rest. 
Again  I  tell  you  why.  He  felt  when  he 
was  a  boy  just  as  you  do,  but  years  have 
taught  him  the  necessity  of  acquiring 
steady  and  regular  habits  of  industry, 
morality  and  religion.  Your  father  has 
lived  a  long  time,  has  had  lots  of  exper¬ 
ience  and  knows  a  great  deal  that  books 
can  not  teach,  and  he  would  like  above  all 
things  else  to  be  able  to  impart  that  ex¬ 
perience  to  you,  which  he  knows  that  he 
can  not  impart  except  by  insisting  on  your 
acquiring  it  by  the  doing  of  it.  That  is 
the  only  way  that  anything  worth  learning 
can  be  learned.  In  all  these  things  your 
father  is  exactly  right. 

You  perhaps  feel  that  he  ought  to  give 
you  a  chance  to  earn  something  for  your¬ 
self;  that  there  ought  to  be  something  on 
the  farm  which  is  your  very  own,  or,  as 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  FATHER. 


9 


your  sister  might  say,  your  “ownest  own.” 
Well,  I  think  so,  too.  I  think  you  are 
entirely  right  in  this,  and  if  I  were  in  your 
place  I  would,  some  day  after  supper 
when  he  was  not  troubled  in  any  way,  talk 
the  matter  over  with  him  in  a  manly,  open 
way.  Nothing  pleases  a  father  so  much 
as  to  see  his  boy  develop  manliness.  I 
would  talk  to  him  about  this,  but  I  would 
make  a  square  bargain  that  if  you  are  to 
have  a  pig,  or  a  calf,  or  a  colt  on  the  terms 
agreed  on,  it  is  to  be  your  hog,  or  your 
steer,  or  your  horse  when  it  is  disposed  of, 
and  you  are  to  be  the  sole  judge,  after 
asking  his  advice,  as  to  how  you  are  to 
use  that  money. 

You  think  your  father  should  not  bind 
you  down  so  closely  as  to  the  plan  you 
are  to  take  in  doing  certain  things  about 
the  farm.  You  want  to  exercise  your 
own  judgment,  and  have,  so  to  speak,  b 
little  leeway.  You  are  willing  to  do  the 
things  he  wants  you  to  do,  but  you  would 
like  to  do  a  little  planning  and  thinking 


10 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


for  yourself  as  to  the  way  of  doing  them. 
Here  you  may  be  right  and  again  you  may 
be  wrong;  but  I  think  he  had  better  say 
to  you,  “My  son,  there  are  certain  results 
that  I  want  accomplished:  I  think  you 
had  better  do  this  way,  but  if  you  see  a 
better  way,  try  your  hand.”  You  will 
probably  find  that  his  way  is  the  right  way 
after  all,  but  it  will  do  no  harm  to  find 
that  out  by  experience. 

You  may  think  that  your  father  is  a 
little  of  an  old  fogy  in  some  matters  con¬ 
nected  with  farming.  There  is  a  possibil¬ 
ity  that  he  is,  and  again  there  is  a  possi¬ 
bility  that  his  long  years  of  experience 
enable  him  to  see  through  the  fallacy  of  a 
lot  of  theories  that  you  may  not  be  able 
to  do  as  yet.  Therefore,  I  would  advise 
before  condemning  his  ideas,  to  study 
them  quite  thoroughly  and  weigh  careful¬ 
ly  what  you  may  see  on  the  other  side. 
He  may  not  be  able  to  give  you  as  good 
reasons  as  you  may  see  on  the  other  side 
on  paper,  but  I  suspect  that  he  has  the 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  FATHER. 


II 


common  sense  of  it  pretty  firmly  fixed 
under  his  gray  hairs,  and  may  not  have 
the  patience  to  sit  down  and  argue  the 
thing  out  with  you. 

I  would  like  for  you  to  have  a  profound 
respect  for  your  father’s  views  on  all  ques¬ 
tions.  They  may  be  wrong;  no  doubt 
many  of  them  are;  but  you  should  remem¬ 
ber  that  “knowledge  comes  but  wisdom 
lingers.”  It  may  be  that  you  know  a  good 
deal  more  than  your  father.  If  so,  it  is 
because  you  take  it  after  your  mother; 
but  whether  you  really  know  it  must  be 
clearly  established  by  actual  results,  and 
not  assumed. 

In  order  to  have  a  proper  respect  for 
your  father,  you  must  not  call  him  “dad,” 
or  “pap,”  or  “pa,”  or  “the  old  gent,”  or 
“the  governor,”  as  I  have  heard  a  good 
many  English  boys  call  their  fathers. 
There  is  but  one  name  that  he  is  entitled 
to,  and  he  is  entitled  to  that  every  time; 
and  that  name  is  “father,”  never  “the  old 


12 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


gentleman.”  The  very  act  of  calling  him 
father  will  make  you  respect  him  and 
respect  yourself,  and  smoothe  out  any 
little  trouble  that  there  may  be  between 
you.  It  is  essential  to  your  growth  and 
future  happiness  that  you  and  yo.ur  father 
have  the  most  perfect  understanding  with 
each  other.  By  and  by  he  will  come  to 
trust  you  implicity.  First,  he  will  be  to 
you  a  sort  of  older  brother;  and  as  the 
years  go  on  he  will  learn  to  depend  on 
you,  to  lean  on  you,  so  to  speak,  and  by 
and  by  will  be  disposed,  when  he  begins 
to  lean  heavily  on  his  staff,  to  pay  as  much 
deference  to  your  opinion  as  you  did  to 
his  when  you  were  a  little  boy.  You 
thought  then  that  father  knew  it  all.  He 
will  think  after  awhile  that  you  know  it 
all,  and  that  whatever  you  do  is  about 
right  because  you  do  it. 

I  write  this  to  you  because  I  have  known 
boys  who  took  a  different  course  from 
that  which  I  advise  you  to  take,  and  who 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  FATHER. 


13 


have  blighted  their  own  lives  and  their 
fathers’  lives,  and  broken  their  mothers’ 
hearts,  and  I  do  not  want  you  to  do 
either. 

Affectionately, 

Uncle  Henry. 


CHAPTER  II. 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  MOTHER. 

My  Dear  Boy: 

You  will,  I  am  sure,  pardon  me  if  I  ven¬ 
ture  to  write  to  you  on  some  matters  that 
are  in  a  manner  sacred,  and  I  do,  solely 
because  I  believe  I  can  do  you  some  good 
for  which  you  may  thank  me  ever  after¬ 
wards.  Your  Uncle  Henry  is  now  over 
sixty  years  old,  and  can,  therefore,  talk  to 
you  as  he  would  not  have  dared  to  do 
twenty  years  ago.  He  has  all  his  life  had 
much  to  do  with  boys,  has  boys  of  his 
own,  and  thinks  that  a  bright  boy,  clean 
in  life,  in  word  and  thought,  is  every  whit 
as  noble  and  admirable  a  character  as  a 
bright,  pure-minded,  beautiful  girl.  He 
has  all  his  life  noticed  that  a  boy  of  this 
class  has  almost  invariably  a  good  mother, 
and  more  than  that,  that  he  is  a  good 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  MOTHER. 


15 


mother's  boy  as  long  as  his  mother  lives. 
You  have  no  doubt  read  the  account  of 
the  inauguration  of  President  McKinley, 
and  you  know  that  his  tenderness  toward 
his  aged  mother  lifted  him  in  your  opinion 
much  higher  on  that  occasion  that  any¬ 
thing  that  he  said  in  his  inaugural  address. 
You  have  often  heard  it  said  of  some  bad 
man,  “There  must  be  something  good 
about  him  after  all  or  he  would  not  be  so 
kind  to  his  mother.”  I  can  assure  you 
right  now  that  your  whole  after  life  will 
depend  very  much  on  the  way  you  treat 
your  mother.  In  all  past  ages  men  have 
noted  this  fact.  “Honor  thy  father  and 
thy  mother,”  said  Paul,  “which  is  the  first 
commandment  with  promise.”  That  prom¬ 
ise  was,  “Long  life  and  life  and  prosperity 
to  such  as  keep  this  commandment,”  and 
noting  the  fact  that  disobedient  boys  come 
to  a  bad  end,  an  inspired  writer  said: 

“The  eye  that  mocketh  at  his  father,— and  despiseth  to 
obey  his  mother, 

The  ravens  of  the  valley  shall  pick  it  out,  and  the  young 
eagles  shall  eat  it.” 


l6  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

This  is  a  simple  statement  of  this  princi¬ 
ple  that  there  is  a  very  close  and  intimate 
relation  between  a  boy’s  success  in  life 
and  the  filial  affection  which  he  shows  to 
his  father  and  especially  to  his  mother. 
It  is  in  the  home  and  in  early  childhood 
that  we  acquire  those  qualities  that  make 
us  truly  successful.  We  learn  to  love  by 
first  loving  our  mother,  we  learn  respect 
and  reverence  from  our  father,  and  we 
learn  to  respect  the  rights  of  others  from 
our  brothers  and  sisters.  From  my  heart 
I  pity  the  boy  who  is  either  motherless 
or  fatherless,  and  scarcely  less  do  I  pity 
the  only  son  or  daughter.  They  are 
all  necessarily  dwarfed  specimens  of  hu¬ 
manity.  Note  the  little  apple  in  the  heart 
of  the  blossom.  The  blossom  is  the  home 
in  which  the  fruit  is  enfolded  until  it  is  fit 
to  endure  the  sunshine  and  the  storm.  If 
the  blossom  is  injured  the  apple  never 
amounts  to  anything.  Even  after  it  grows 
to  maturity  and  the  blossom  has  long  since 
fallen  away,  it  still  leaves  its  mark  on  the 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  MOTHER.  I  7 

apple.  So  it  is  in  your  home  life.  “Poor 
boy/’  we  often  say,  “his  father  died  when 
he  was  a  baby,”  or,  “He  had  no  mother,” 
or,  “He  was  an  only  child,”  when  we  wish 
to  excuse  weakness  for  which  there  is  no 
other  palliation. 

You  are  entitled,  my  dear  boy,  to  all  the 
good  a  good  mother  can  do  you,  but  you 
can  never  realize  this  until  you  are  good 
to  your  mother,  and  the  one  proof  of  this 
love  will  be  in  seeing  that  the  wood  is  al¬ 
ways  dry,  that  she  has  as  little  drudgery 
as  possible  to  do  about  the  farm,  and  that 
her  mind  is  ever  free  from  care. 

Now,  let  me  tell  you  of  some  things 
that  you  will  be  tempted  to  do.  Some 
boy  will  wish  you  to  join  him  in  something 
you  know  your  mother  would  not  approve. 
He  will  sometimes  sneer  at  you  and  call 
you  “mother’s  boy,”  and  say  you  are 
“tied  to  your  mother’s  apron  strings.”  I 
would  not  advise  you  to  knock  that  boy 
down,  because  the  sneer  is  directed  at 
you  and  you  can  afford  to  let  it  pass,  but 
if  he  says  anything  against  your  mother 


1 8  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

you  have  my  permission  to  slap  his 
mouth.  Do  not  let  any  boy  of  your  age 
or  size  say  a  word  disrespectful  of  your 
mother.  Let  her  religious  convictions, 
her  ideas  of  duty  and  propriety,  her  faults 
even,  be  too  sacred  to  be  found  fault  with 
by  mortal  man. 

You  are  likely,  as  you  approach  man¬ 
hood,  to  put  too  little  store  in  your 
mother’s  judgment.  When  a  boy  gets  to 
be  from  sixteen  to  nineteen  or  twenty  he 
is  apt  to  speak  lightly  of  women  and 
think  lightly  of  his  mother’s  influence. 
She  may  not  be  as  good  a  scholar  as  you 
are,  may  not  know  half  so  many  things, 
but  your  Uncle  Henry  would  take  her 
judgment  offhand  in  preference  to  yours 
in  all  matters  that  affect  character  or  life. 
When  you  get  to  know  women  better 
than  you  now  do,  you  will  find  they  have 
a  very  queer  way  of  guessing  at  the  rights 
of  things  and  guessing  right  nearly  every 
time.  A  man  reasons,  a  woman  divines;  a 
man  thinks  things  out,  awoman  feels  them 
out.  Your  mother  is  not  infallible  nor  yet 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  MOTHER.  Ig 

*|  perfect,  but  she  is  so  nearly  certain  to  be 
right  about  matters  that  affect  your  char¬ 
acter  and  life  that  you  can  not  afford  to 
treat  her  intuitions  lightly.  If  you  do,  you 
will  make  a  mistake. 

When  you  become  a  man  you  will  have 
a  wife  of  your  own,  or  ought  to.  You 
won’t  own  it  to  me,  but  I  you  suppose  are 
thinking  once  in  a  while  about  that  time. 
She  may  be  a  little  jealous  that  any 
woman  should  share  your  affections; 
possibly  she  may  not  be  able  to  help  it, 
but  let  me  say  to  you  that  she  knows  more 
about  other  women  than  you  do  or  ever 
will.  If  you  are  as  good  to  your  mother 
as  you  ought  to  be  she  will  in  the  proper 
time  take  your  girl  into  her  heart  and  life 
as  a  daughter  indeed. 

You  will  be  all  the  happier  if  you  make 
your  mother  your  confidant  in  your  love 
affairs.  Confidentially  I  may  say  to  you, 
she  is  ordinarily  about  the  only  one  of 
the  family  you  can  advise  with  freely  on 
that  subject.  Your  brothers  and  sisters 
might  laugh  at  you,  and  you  do  not  like 


20 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


to  talk  to  your  father  about  it,  but  I  as¬ 
sure  you  that  you  can  have  no  better 
adviser  in  a  matter  which  may  be  hap¬ 
piness  or  misery  unspeakable  to  you  than 
your  own  mother.  There  is  something 
very  beautiful  and  touching  in  the  affection 
of  a  mother  toward  a  good  boy  when  her 
hair  is  white  and  her  step  tottering.  His 
hair,  too,  may  be  gray,  but  to  her  he  is  a 
boy  still,  repaying  in  tenderness  and 
kindness  and  helpfulness  that  quenchless 
love  which  she  lavishes  upon  him  from 
childhood  to  manhood.  By  kindness  and 
tenderness,  by  making  her  your  confidant 
now,  yOu  can  make  your  mother  the  hap¬ 
piest  of  women  and  at  the  same  time  do 
much  to  make  your  own  life  a  success. 
One  little  act  of  kindness  shown  her  each 
day  will  do  it. 

Affectionately, 

Your  Uncle  Henry. 


CHAPTER  III. 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  TEMPER. 

My  Dear  Boy: 

I  have  not  sized  you  up  as  a  goody- 
goody  boy  such  as  too  often  figure  in 
Sunday  school  books.  Such  boys  are 
too  often  like  the  apples  that  ripen 
too  early,  indicating  that  the  tree  is  on 
the  decline.  I  do  not  think  there  is  much 
danger  of  your  dying  early  on  account  of 
being  too  good  for  this  world.  I  have 
seen  you  get  mad  and  fight  and  some¬ 
times  heard  you  say  words  not  found  in 
the  dictionary.  I  do  not  approve  of  these 
things;  neither  will  you  when  you  are 
older;  and  yet  I  have  more  hope  of  a  boy 
built  in  that  way  than  of  one  who  is  goody 
good,  and  a  great  deal  more  than  of  one 
who  prides  himself  on  his  cunning  and  de¬ 
ceit,  or  who  delights  in  doing  little, 


22 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


underhanded,  mean  things,  such  as  telling 
tales  out  of  school,  and  meanwhile  playing 
the  role  of  a  saint.  But,  my  boy,  if  you 
are  to  make  your  mark  in  this  world  you 
will  have  to  learn  to  curb  that  temper,  a 
thing  which  you  can  never  do  until  you 
learn  to  curb  that  tongue. 

I  know  how  many  things  there  are 
about  the  farm  that  make  a  boy  mad  and 
let  his  tongue  loose  at  both  ends.  There 
is,  for  instance,  the  experienced  brood  sow 
that  will  go  the  wrong  way  when  you  drive 
her,  that  will  not  lead  worth  a  cent,  and 
goes  about  where  she  pleases.  Her  pigs 
seem  to  lie  awake  nights  thinking  how  to 
get  into  the  garden  or  potato  patch,  and 
when  you  discover  the  little  rascals  they 
clear  out  with  an  air  that  seems  to  say: 
“Didn’t  we  come  it  over  our  bubby?” 
Then  there  is  the  cow  that  opens  the  gate 
as  if  her  horns  were  hands,  and  that  other 
cow  that  kicks  on  the  slightest  excuse  and 
generally  manages  to  get  one  foot  in  the 
bucket  when  it  is  half-full.  Then,  there  is 
the  wise  old  brood  mare  that  will  come 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  TEMPER.  23 

at  your  call  in  the  pasture  and  take  the 
corn  out  of  your  hand,  but  if  you  reach 
for  her  foretop,  will  show  you  her  heels, 
and  let  you  feel  them,  too,  unless  you  are 
lively.  I  do  not  wonder  that  you  get 
angry  and  are  tempted  to  take  a  club  to 
the  sow,  beat  the  cow  with  the  milk  stool 
and  whip  the  old  mare — when  you  get  a 
chance.  I  have  felt  just  that  way  many  a 
time.  Then,  there  is  the  balky  horse  that 
looks  around  over  his  shoulder  when  he 
comes  to  a  soft  place  in  the  road  or  to  a 
little  hill,  and  stops  and  stays  stopped — a 
regular  quitter  that  will  neither  be  coaxed 
nor  forced  to  budge  an  inch,  and  seems  to 
enjoy  your  anger.  You  may  be  pushing 
the  mower  in  hay  harvest  and  about  every 
rod  or  two  the  sickle  runs  into  a  gophei 
hill  and  you  have  to  stop  and  back,  and 
clean  it  off,  and  are  scarcely  back  in  your 
seat  until  you  run  into  another  hill,  and 
this  time  you  say,  “Confound  the  gophers,” 
or  perhaps  worse.  Or,  you  may  be  in  a 
hurry  to  get  off  a  load  of  hay  and  get  in 
another  before  the  rain  and  the  horse  fork 


24 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


takes  a  tantrum  and  drops  the  forkful  too 
soon  or  twists  around  and  will  not  drop  it 
at  all,  and  your  father  loses  his  temper 
and  comes  tearing  in  to  know  what  keeps 
you  so  long  at  the  barn. 

Oh,  the  farm  is  a  grand  place  to  try  a 
boy’s  temper.  It  is  almost  sure  to  rain  at 
the  very  time  when  you  are  promised  a 
day’s  fishing,  and  the  best  horse  on  the 
place  goes  lame  when  you  expect  to  take 
your  best  girl  to  the  Fourth  of  July.  At 
least  that  is  the  way  it  used  to  be.  Never¬ 
theless,  my  boy,  you  will  have  to  get  the 
better  of  your  temper  or  your  life  will  be 
somewhat  of  a  failure,  and  the  less  you 
curb  it  the  more  of  a  failure  your  life  will 
be. 

For  a  boy  or  girl  to  get  mad  and  fly  off 
the  handle  is  somewhat  excusable;  for  a 
man,  never — well,  hardly  ever.  “Be  ye 
angry  and  sin  not,”  said  an  inspired 
apostle  who,  himself  once  got  angry  and 
called  the  chief  justice  a  “whited  wall,” 
which  means  simply  a  first-class  scoundrel, 
so  I  presume  there  is  an  anger  that  is  al- 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  TEMPER. 


25 


together  justifiable;  at  least  I  hope  so,  but 
“let  not  the  sun  go  down  upon  your 
wrath.”  The  boy  is  not  supposed  to  have 
gained  control  of  himself ;  the  man  is.  I 
know  men,  and  a  good  many  of  them, 
who  are  very  strong  in  many  ways,  have 
nearly  every  other  element  of  great  suc¬ 
cess  but  this  one  of  self-control,  and  they 
sometimes  make  stark  fools  of  themselves 
and  lose  the  respect  of  their  best  friends 
because  they  fly  in  a  passion  on  very 
slight  pretexts;  or,  what  is  even  worse, 
sulk  and  pout  and  then  go  home  at  night 
and  kick  the  dog,  scold  their  wives,  if 
they  dare,  and  their  children  go  off  to  the 
barn  or  to  bed  for  fear  of  their  father's 
anger.  This  is  what  may  happen  you 
when  you  become  a  man  unless  you  get 
control  of  your  temper  and  your  tongue 
while  you  can. 

Now  let  me  whisper  a  secret:  That  cow 
and  the  brood  mare  would  not  be  half  so 
“ornery”if  somebody  had  not  been  in  the 
habit  of  losing  his  temper.  That  balky 
horse  would  never  have  learned  to  balk  if 


26 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


his  first  owner  had  had  good  horse  sense 
and  controlled  his  temper.  I  do  not  say 
that  any  measure  of  self-control  on  the 
part  of  the  owner  will  take  the  contrariness 
out  of  a  hog,  but  it  will  take  away  the  op¬ 
portunity  of  showing  it. 

You  ask  me  how  to  control  that  temper. 
Let  me  confess  to  you  that  it  is  not  an 
easy  matter,  but  where  there  is  a  will 
there  is  a  way  and  a  wise  father  and 
mother  will  help  you  in  this  good  work. 
Your  Uncle  Henry  had  a  furious  temper 
when  a  boy.  He  got  mad  when  he  was 
turned  down  at  school,  and  flew  off  the 
handle  about  something  or  other  nearly 
every  day.  He  remembers  very  distinct¬ 
ly  his  first  lesson  in  curbing  his  tem¬ 
per.  His  father  put  a  J.  I.  C.  bit  on  him 
one  morning  very  neatly.  He  did  not 
like  something  at  the  breakfast  table  and 
on  being  reproved  flew  off  as  usual.  The 
first  thing  he  knew  he  got  a  dash  of  very 
cold  water  in  the  face,  and  then  another 
and  another.  The  shock  enabled  him  to 
get  control  of  his  nerves.  He  then  and 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  TEMPER.  27 

there  found  that  he  could  control  his 
temper  if  he  but  tried.  It  is  all  nonsense 
to  say  that  a  boy  can  not  control  his  tem¬ 
per.  Did  I  not  see  you  the  other  day  in 
a  passion  when  working  on  the  road?  The 
other  boys  laughed  at  you  and  you  looked 
around  and  saw  your  best  girl  coming  in 
a  buggy  and  lookingas  sweet  and  cool  as  a 
rose  after  a  shower,  and  in  a  second  you 
were  all  smiles  and  touched  your  hat  to 
her  and  felt  a  little  ashamed  of  yourself 
all  that  day.  No  matter  how  angry  you 
are  you  can  hold  your  tongue  when  a 
stranger  for  whom  you  have  great  respect 
is  present.  If  you  can  d'o  it  with  this  out¬ 
side  help,  you  can,  if  you  try,  do  it  with¬ 
out  it. 

Bear  this  in  mind,  that  sinful  anger  is 
never  a  mark  of  strength  or  of  manliness, 
but  always  of  weakness.  It  is  a  sign  of 
immaturity — vealishness,  if  you  wish  to 
call  it  such.  It  never  contributes  to  hap¬ 
piness  and  always  makes  a  sensible  man 
feel  cheap  and  mean  when  he  comes  to 
himself.  I  am  free  to  say  that  I  have 


28 


LETTERS  OT  THE  FARM  BOY. 


never  been  angry  without  good  cause, 
and  let  my  tongue  loose  without  after¬ 
wards  loathing  and  despising  myself.  One 
cannot  afford  to  lose  his  self-respect  and 
hence  to  maintain  it  is  obliged  to  secure 
self-control. 

One  can  sometimes  do  by  indirection 
what  he  can  not  do  directly.  When  a  farm 
boy  I  once  caught  a  preacher  whistling 
on  Sunday  morning,  which  I  was  taught 
was  a  very  great  sin,  and  ventured  to  ask 
him  why  he  did  it.  He  colored  up  and 
said:  ‘Til  tell  you,  my  boy,  how  I  got 
into  the  habit.  I  had  a  fearfully  bad  tem¬ 
per  when  I  was  a  young  man  and  resolved 
to  whistle  whenever  I  found  my  temper 
rising.  I  then  got  into  the  habit  of 
whistling  whenever  I  was  thinking  serious¬ 
ly  about  anything,  and  I  was  just  now 
thinking  over  my  sermon,  and  it  whistled 
itself.”  Another  once  told  me  he  got 
control  by  counting  three  before  he  let 
his  tongue  loose  on  the  other  fellow. 
Mind  this,  if  you  can  keep  your  tongue 
between  your  teeth  you  will  have  little 
trouble  with  your  temper. 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  TEMPER.  2g 


I  don’t  say  a  man  should  never  become 
angry.  Far  less  do  I  say  he  should  not 
show  resentment.  There  are  some  things 
on  the  farm  and  a  thousand  times  as 
many  off  it  calculated  to  make  a  true 
man’s  blood  boil  and  fill  him  with 
righteous  indignation,  and  he  ought  by  all 
means  to  show  it.  Neither  man  nor  boy 
has  any  right  to  stand  insult  or  endure 
wrong  without  showing  resentment,  and 
that  in  a  most  pointed  way.  A  man  or 
boy  who  allows  another  to  wrong  him  or 
insult  him  without  resenting  it  lacks 
something  essential  in  the  proper  makeup 
of  a  true  man,  and  actually  becomes  an 
an  accessory  to  wrong  doing.  I  think  the 
recording  angel  conveniently  forgets  to 
report  the  boy  who  knocks  down  the 
bully  who  by  brute  force  terrorizes  weak¬ 
er  boys.  If  I  had  the  reporting  to  do  I 
would  look  the  other  way,  and  if  I  hap¬ 
pened  to  see  it  would  report  a  credit 
mark  instead.  The  public  sentiment  that 
justifies  a  brother  in  putting  a  bullet  hole 
through  the  man  who  ruined  his  sister  is 


30 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


not  wholly  evil.  It  teaches  brutes  to  con¬ 
trol  their  passions  and  fools  to  hold  their 
tongues.  Resentment,  however,  to  be 
effective,  must  be  with  perfect  self-control. 
If  you  have  to  show  your  teeth  do  it  de¬ 
liberately  and  show  just  enough  and  no 
more.  If  you  bite,  do  it  with  perfect  cool¬ 
ness  and  to  good  purpose.  You  can  never 
do  this  unless  you  control  your  temper. 
The  boy  to  be  feared  is  the  boy  who  can 
knock  you  down  and  smile,  whose  eyes 
are  ablaze  with  fire  and  yet  under  perfect 
control.  It  is  this  that  marks  the  really 
strong  man  that  I  wish  you  to  be. 

You  will  be  surprised  to  find  how  much 
the  habits  of  the  stock  on  the  farm  will  im¬ 
prove  when  you  get  control  of  yourself. 
On  many  farms  the  live  stock  uncon¬ 
sciously  tell  the  observant  man  just  what 
kind  of  a  temper  the  owner,  or  some  of 
the  boys,  or  perhaps  the  hired  man,  has. 
Remember  what  Bobbie  Burns  said: 
“Know,  prudent,  cautious  self-control  is 
wisdom's  root.”  So  thinks  your 

Uncle  Henry. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  CHUM. 

My  Dear  Boy: 

If  you  are  to  become  the  good  and  true 
man  that  your  father  and  mother  hope 
you  will  be,  it  is  very  important  that  you 
choose  the  right  kind  of  a  friend.  Tell 
me  the  kind  of  a  chum  a  boy  has,  and  I 
will  tell  you  what  sort  of  a  boy  he  is  and 
what  type  of  a  man  he  is  likely  to  become. 

I  sometimes  think  that  it  is  essential  to 
the  right  development  of  a  boy  that  he 
should  have,  first,  a  dog;  second,  a  chum; 
and  third,  and  last,  his  best  girl.  It  is  a 
little  too  soon  to  talk  about  “the  last  and 
best”  yet,  but  if  you  have  fallen  in  love 
with  the  right  kind  of  a  dog  and  selected 
the  right  kind  of  a  chum,  you  will  not  go 
far  wrong  on  the  best  girl;  and  if  you  do 
not  find  her,  she  will  happen  in  on  your 


32 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


path  by  accident,  or  Providence,  when  the 
right  time  comes.  Your  father  knows  all 
about  that,  I  am  sure.  I  like  the  boy  that 
likes  a  good  dog,  a  dog  that  is  bright, 
honest  and  industrious — that  looks  you 
square  in  the  eye  without  flinching,  and 
will  fight  for  you  when  it  is  time  to  fight, 
and  there  is  something  wrong  with  the  boy 
that  likes  a  downright  mean,  cowardly 
dog — a  dog  with  a  bad  conscience. 

After  the  dog,  but  generally  along  with 
with  it,  comes  the  chum,  and  he  is  the 
making  or  marring  of  more  boys  than 
parents  think. 

I  like  a  boy  who  has  one  particular 
friend  about  his  own  age,  a  friend  or 
chum  with  whom  he  delights  to  be,  and 
stands  by  through  thick  and  thin  in  all 
things  right  and  honest.  We  have  no 
right,  whether  men  or  boys,  to  stand  by 
any  one  through  thick  and  thin  who  is  not 
in  the  right.  Our  allegiance  to  right  is 
above  and  beyond  our  obligations  to  any¬ 
thing  or  any  person  on  earth.  Do  not 
forget  that.  If  the  boy’s  chum  is  a  thor- 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  CHUM. 


33 


oughly  good,  manly  boy,  the  mother  may 
feel  that  her  boy  is  safe.  It  is  not  every 
boy,  nor  every  farm  boy,  that  is  fit  to  be  a 
farm  boy’s  friend.  There  are  whole  classes 
of  boys  that  he  should  avoid  as  friends,  if 
he  does  not  wish  to  sup  sorrow  sooner  or 
later.  I  say  “avoid  as  friends.”  I  do  not 
say  avoid  altogether.  You  are  soon  to  go 
out  into  a  world  that  has  all  sorts  of  peo¬ 
ple  in  it,  from  the  worst  to  the  best,  and 
you  will  have  to  mingle  with  them  more 
or  less,  and  you  should  learn  to  touch  the 
worst  and  not  be  defiled.  You  may  as 
well  begin  now  and  learn  to  be  among  the 
bad  and  yet  not  be  of  them. 

To  begin  with,  have  the  least  possible 
to  do  with  the  boy  who  likes  to  use  bad 
language;  who  loves  to  tell  smutty  stories, 
and  who  has  a  low  opinion  of  women, 
especially  of  girls  of  his  own  age.  That 
is  the  worst  sort  of  a  boy  that  you  can 
have  anything  whatever  to  do  with.  If 
you  like  that  kind  of  a  boy  I  pity  you.  I 
pity  your  father  and  mother,  and  I  sin¬ 
cerely  hope  you  will  never  marry.  If  you 


34 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


choose  him  as  your  friend,  you  will  in  a 
few  years  not  be  fit  to  look  a  decent  girl 
in  the  face.  If  you  should  afterwards  re¬ 
pent  and  be  converted,  you  will  not  even 
then  be  able  in  all  your  life  to  get  rid  en¬ 
tirely  of  his  corrupting  influence.  I  know 
men  now  who  are  trying  to  be  Christians, 
and  who  vet,  I  am  told,  when  they  fall  in 
with  old  chums  and  the  like,  vomit  filth 
like  a  turkey  buzzard.  These  men  had 
filthy  chums  when  they  were  boys,  and 
they  will  be  more  or  less  filthy  when  they 
fall  in  with  filthy  folks  as  long  as  they  live. 
Think  what  a  hell  it  must  be  for  a  man  to 
carry  around  with  him  filthy  recollections 
which  in  his  better  moments  he  loathes  and 
hates,  and  to  keep  on  doing  it  until  the 
end  of  his  days.  He  had  about  as  well  be 
chained  to  a  corpse.  Keep  your  mind 
clean  and  pure  and  make  no  friendships 
with  a  filthy  minded  boy. 

Do  not  make  a  chum  of  a  profane  boy. 
He  may  have  many  good  qualities,  but  he 
speaks  of  the  God  who  made  him  in  a  way 
that  even  he  would  not  allow  any  boy  to 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  CHUM. 


35 


speak  of  his  father  or  mother.  Either  he 
does  not  believe  there  is  a  Supreme  Being, 
in  which  case  he  is  not  a  fit  companion 
for  you,  or  he  defies  Him,  which  is  worse, 
or  he  is  an  ignorant  fellow  and  uses  pro¬ 
fane  language  only  by  way  of  emphasis. 
In  neither  case  is  he  fit  to  be  your  chum. 
You  expect  to  be  regarded  as  a  gentleman 
when  you  grow  up,  and  even  if  there  were 
no  sin  in  it,  you  do  not  want  to  get  into 
the  habit  of  using  language  that  by  com¬ 
mon  consent  is  never  heard  in  the  societv 

* 

of  gentlemen  and  ladies. 

Under  no  circumstances  choose  the 
bully  of  the  neighborhood  or  of  the  school 
for  your  friend.  Boys  are  often  tempted 
to  do  so.  You  may  admire  his  strength, 
his  seeming  courage,  his  brute  force;  you 
may  think  yourself  safe  under  his  protec¬ 
tion.  Do  not  do  it.  It  is  brain  force  com¬ 
bined  with  moral  courage  and  integrity 
that  rules  the  world,  not  self-assertion  or 
brute  force.  Avoid  the  bully  as  much  as 
possible.  Do  not  quarrel  with  him;  do 
not  give  an  opportunity,  if  you  can  help  it, 


36  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

for  him  to  bully  you.  Keep  away  from 
him  as  much  as  possible,  and  when  you 
see  that  your  unwillingness  to  submit  to 
his  domination  is  regarded  as  an  insult, 
get  you  a  pair  of  boxing  gloves  and  prac¬ 
tice  with  your  father  or  brothers  or  the 
hired  man  in  the  barn,  and  then,  lick  the 
bully.  Down  at  the  bottom  the  bully  is 
always  a  coward.  I  suffered  much,  when 
a  boy,  from  this  breed  of  cattle.  My 
father  told  me  that  if  I  ever  got  into  a 
fight  at  school,  I  would  get  a  licking  when 
I  got  home.  I  endured  tortures  from  the 
bully  of  the  school  because  it  was  known 
that  John  Wallace  would  not  allow  his 
boys  to  fight.  I  broke  over  the  rule  once 
— my  father  never  knew  it, — and  I  had 
peace  afterwards.  Why  do  I  insist  on  this 
point?  I  will  tell  you.  The  bully  is  a 
brute  as  a  boy;  a  failure  as  a  man.  He 
develops  a  type  of  character  that  makes 
men  fear  him  and  hate  him.  He  never 
has  any  true  friends,  and  the  man  that 
cannot  attach  men  to  him  as  friends  is  a 
failure  even  though  he  be  worth  millions. 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  CHUM. 


37 


You  do  not  want  to  develop  that  type  of 
character;  therefore  do  not  choose  that 
sort  of  a  boy  as  your  chum. 

Do  not  choose  for  your  chum  the  boy 
who  cannot  control  his  temper.  That 
sort  of  a  boy  is  not  sate.  He  may  have 
many  good  qualities,  may  mean  well,  but 
he  is  not  safe.  Solomon,  the  wise  old  fel¬ 
low,  saw  this  point  long  ago  when  he  said: 
“Make  no  friendship  with  an  angry  man, 
and  with  a  furious  man  thou  shalt  not  go.” 
He  will  make  it  more  difficult  for  you  to 
control  your  temper,  and  you  never  know 
when  he  will  fly  off  and  shame  you.  You 
had  better  be  loaded  down  with  disease 
or  debt  than  with  a  temper  you  cannot 
control. 

Choose  as  your  chum  the  boy  that  re¬ 
spects  his  father,  loves  his  sister,  fights  for 
his  little  brother  and  adores  his  mother; 
the  boy  that  is  clean  in  his  speech  and  in¬ 
stinctively  shuns  the  vulgar  and  profane; 
the  boy  that  never  quarrels  when  if  can 
possibly  be  avoided,  but  will  not  be  in¬ 
sulted  without  resenting  it  in  manner  and 


33 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


words,  and  if  necessary  as  a  last  resort,  by 
blows;  the  boy  that  is  industrious,  eco¬ 
nomical,  and  has  a  profound  respect  for 
things  sacred.  Choose  as  your  friend  the 
boy  that  has  good  blood  in  him;  that 
comes  of  the  best  stock  of  people  in  the 
teighborhood.  It  matters  little  whether 
lis  father  is  rich  or  poor.  Wealth  should 
cut  no  figure  in  a  boy’s  friendships.  In 
point  of  fact  it  seldom  does.  The  only 
real  republic  that  exists  in  this  world  is 
the  republic  of  boyhood.  This  is  one  rea¬ 
son  I  like  boys  better  than  I  do  girls,  and 
I  used  to  like  girls  a  good  deal,  and  do 
yet.  Boys  do  not  recognize  class  distinc¬ 
tions  until  they  become  men  and  get 
spoiled.  If  your  father  is  poor  and  you 
are  the  right  sort  of  a  boy,  the  best  wo¬ 
man  in  the  neighborhood  will  be  glad  to 
welcome  you  as  her  boy’s  chum,  and  if 
your  father  is  rich  and  a  wise  man,  he  will 
welcome  any  manly  boy  to  his  home  as 
the  friend  of  his  son.  He  knows  the  value 
of  good  blood  in  a  boy,  and  by  good 
blood  I  mean  that  he  comes  from  a  good 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  CHUM.  39 

family  whose  instincts  are  right,  who  nat¬ 
urally  like  things  that  are  honest  and  pure 
and  of  good  report,  whether  they  have 
made  money  or  not.  If  you  choose  this 
sort  of  a  boy  as  your  chum,  it  matters  very 
little  whether  you  live  in  town  or  country. 
There  is  not  much  danger  of  your  falling 
into  bad  habits.  Boys  of  lower  instincts 
may  call  you  proud  and  stuck  up  because 
you  try  to  keep  yourself  out  of  the  dirt. 
Never  mind;  down  in  their  heart  of  hearts 
they  respect  you  all  the  more  for  it. 

If  you  want  your  chum  to  be  true  to 
you,  you  must  be  true  to  him.  A  boy 
that  would  have  friends  must  show  him¬ 
self  friendly,  and  there  is  a  friend  that 
sticketh  closer  than  a  brother.  That 
friend  is  the  right  kind  of  a  chum.  That 
is  not  the  way  the  preachers  interpret  this 
text,  but  it  is  what  Solomon  meant;  at 
least  so  thinks 


Uncle  Henry. 


CHAPTER  V. 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  READING. 

My  Dear  Boy: 

I  need  scarcely  tell  you  that  your  future 
will  be  largely  influenced  by  your  reading. 
Tell  me  what  a  farm  boy  reads  and  I  can 
tell  you  what  kind  of  a  boy  he  is;  tell  me 
what  he  continues  to  read  and  I  can  tell 
you  what  he  is  likely  to  be.  The  boy  who 
is  not  a  reader  in  this  day  and  age  of  the 
world  is  very  likely  to  be  a  nobody. 
Whether,  if  he  reads,  he  will  be  any  credit 
to  himself  or  his  fiiends  will  be  determined 
largely  by  what  he  reads.  The  farm  boy 
should  read  not  for  amusement  or  recrea¬ 
tion,  but  to  learn  what  he  needs  most  of 
all  to  know.  He  is  a  new  beginner  in  this 
world  and  his  future  is  all  before  him;  it 
will  beabout  whathe  makes itand  it  is  more 
important  for  him  than  any  one  else  to 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  READING.  41 


know  the  truth,  the  real  facts  of  life,  and 
especially  those  facts  that  bear  upon  the 
profession,  business,  or  occupation  that 
he  may  choose  for  the  future.  The  farm 
boy  of  all  others  has  no  time  to  fool  away 
in  reading  truck,  of  which,  I  am  sorry  to 
say,  the  world  is  altogether  too  full.  Of 
books,  I  would  say  first  of  all  read  the 
Bible.  Its  first  chapters  are  the  oldest 
literature  of  the  world.  You  want  to 
know  where  you  came  from,  what  you  are 
here  for,  and  where  you  are  going,  and 
this  is  the  only  Book  that  can  tell  you 
anything  reliable  and  accurate  regarding 
these  three  all-important  questions.  I 
would  not  have  you  read  the  Bible  solely 
as  a  religious  duty,  nor  have  you  regard  it 
with  superstitious  reverence.  I  would 
have  you  read  it  as  you  would  any  other 
book  that  contains  information  which  it  is 
of  the  utmost  importance  for  you  to  know, 
It  is  the  only  book  that  I  know  of  that 
will  tell  you  the  exact  truth  about  men 
and  things.  It  is  the  only  book  that 
teaches  the  absolutely  correct  way  of  liv- 


42 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


ingand  states  principles,  belief  in  which  is 
essential  to  the  highest  success.  I  would 
have  you  read  this  until  i  becomes  like 
the  iron  in  your  blood,  and  would  have 
you  do  so  all  the  same  if  there  were  no 
other  world  than  this.  The  great  nations 
of  the  world  are  all  readers  of  this  Book; 
so  are  its  great  men.  The  just  laws  of  the 
world  all  have  their  roots  in  it.  It  teaches 
men  how  to  keep  clean  morally,  mentally 
and  spiritually;  and  whatever  else  you 
may  omit,  you  can  not  afford  not  to  know 
what  this  book  teaches.  I  would,  there¬ 
fore,  first  of  all,  have  you  read  this  Book 
which  the  people  who  have  made  the 
world  what  it  is  believe  to  contain  the  re¬ 
vealed  will  of  God.  You  can  make  no 
mistake  here.  If  it  condemns  you,  it  does 
so  to  make  a  man  of  you;  if  it  commends 
your  course,  you  need  not  fear  for  the 
future,  either  in  this  world  or  the  next. 
By  all  means  read  the  Bible. 

As  to  other  books,  it  is  easier  to  tell  you 
what  not  to  read  than  to  read.  If  you 
wish  to  learn  how  to  express  yourself  in 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  READING.  43 

the  clearest,  simplest  and  most  forcible 
English,  read  Bunyan’s  Pilgrim’s  Progress. 
It  will  teach  you  much  more  than  this,  but 
it  is  worth  reading  once  a  year  for  the 
next  ten  years  for  this  only.  If  you  wish 
to  know  what  men,  and  especially  women, 
are,  master  Shakespeare.  Read  the  plays 
over  and  over  until  you  get  hold  of  the 
idea,  then  study  the  characters  in  detail. 
You  can  afford  to  read  some  of  these 
plays  every  year.  I  would  have  you  a 
man  of  few  books.  There  are  but  few 
books  in  this  world  that  the  farm  boy  has 
time  to  read  or  that  it  would  pay  him  to 
read.  It  is  the  man  who  reads  few  books, 
and  reads  them  over  and  over  again  until 
they  are  part  of  his  being,  incorporated  in 
his  very  nature,  that  will  make  his  head¬ 
way  in  the  world.  He  is  the  man  to  be 
feared  by  his  foes  and  trusted  by  his 
friends.  Never  under  any  circumstances 
read  a  book  that  is  written  in  bad  spirit, 
that  sneers  at  things  sacred,  that  raises 
doubts  which  it  cannot  satisfy,  or  a  ques- 


44 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


tion  which  it  does  not  attempt  to  answer 
fully  and  fairly. 

You  say  you  have  no  time  to  read  these 
books.  Take  an  old  farm  boy’s  word  for 
it  that  you  have  more  time  now  than  you 
are  likely  ever  to  have  again.  Now,  as  to 
your  school  books:  Master  them  every 
one  completely  and  thoroughly.  Do  not 
finally  lay  away  a  school  book  until  you 
are  certain  that  you  know  everything  that 
it  can  teach  you.  It  is  not  the  man  who 
knows  a  little  of  everything  who  makes  a 
success  of  life,  but  the  man  who  knows  a 
few  things  and  knows  all  about  them.  In 
addition  to  this,  read  history,  particularly 
of  your  own  country  and  of  the  English 
people  and  of  the  race  from  which  your 
father  sprung.  With  diligence  you  can 
do  all  this  before  you  leave  the  farm,  if 
you  ever  leave  it,  and  whether  you  are  a 
farmer  or  a  business  man  you  will  never 
regret  taking  this  advice.  I  want  you  to 
be  a  strong  man,  fit  for  any  position  you 
may  be  called  upon  to  take  in  the  world, 
and  you  cannot  do  it  unless  you  are  a 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  READING.  45 

reader,  a  thorough  reader,  and  a  reader  of 
the  right  kind  of  books. 

You  will  read  newspapers  of  course. 
You  do  not  lose  anything  by  not  having 
the  daily  paper.  A  good  weekly  paper 
will  give  you  all  the  news  of  the  world 
that  is  worth  knowing.  Your  county  paper 
will  give  you  all  the  local  news.  You 
should  keep  yourself  posted  on  what  is 
going  on  in  your  own  community.  If  you 
wish  a  monthly  compendium  of  the  best 
thoughts  and  most  important  events  of  the 
world,  take  the  Review  of  Reviews.  It 
will  cost  you  ^3.00  a  year  and  save  you 
the  necessity  of  getting  any  other  maga¬ 
zine.  1  would  have  you  throw  aside  any 
newspaper  that  is  written  with  a  bad  spirit, 
or  that  would  make  you  believe  that  the 
world,  this  country  in  particular,  is  going 
to  the  bad,  or  that  will  make  you  believe 
that  the  parties  to  which  you  do  not  be¬ 
long  are  full  of  bad  men.  You  will  be 
told  continually  that  the  republicans  are 
rogues,  the  democrats  fools,  and  the  pop- 
ulists  cranks.  Now,  there  are  some  rogues 


40 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


among  the  republicans,  some  fools  among 
the  democrats  and  some  cranks  among 
the  populists;  but  the  great  majority  by 
far  of  all  these  parties  are  good  people 
who  wish  well  for  their  country  and  are 
patriotic  to  the  core,  but  differ  honestly 
as  to  public  policies;  and  the  newspaper 
that  teaches  that  all  other  parties  are  evil 
and  enemies  to  their  country,  is  a  news¬ 
paper  that  is  not  fit  for  a  farm  boy  to  read. 
Avoid  every  book  or  paper  that  apparent¬ 
ly  loves  to  point  out  the  evil  in  other  men. 
That  paper  or  book  is  itself  evil,  and  the 
fact  that  it  gloats  over  evil  is  the  best  of 
all  the  proofs  of  its  unfitness  for  any 
healthy  farm  boy  to  read.  I  do  not  say 
that  you  should  not  read  novels,  but  you 
have  no  time  to  read  them  now.  When 
your  mind  is  more  matured,  when  you 
need  recreation,  you  can  read  novels  prof¬ 
itably,  but  not  the  blood  and  thunder  vari¬ 
ety  nor  the  sentimental  truck,  but  novels 
like  those  of  Walter  Scott  and  Charles 
Dickens  that  portray  life  as  it  is.  At 
present  stick  closely  to  books  and  papers 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  READING.  47 

that  give  you  the  facts  which  you  need 
for  your  guidance  in  life.  This  letter,  my 
dear  boy,  may  seem  like  a  sermon,  but 
believe  me,  it  is  exactly  what  I  would  do 
if  I  were  once  more  a  farm  boy. 

Uncle  Henry. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  FUTURE  BUSINESS. 

My  Dear  Boy: 

Next  to  selecting  a  wife,  the  most  im¬ 
portant  step  you  will  take  in  the  next 
twenty  years  will  be  the  selection  of  the 
means  by  which  you  are  to  earn  your 
bread  and  butter.  It  is  possible  this  may 
be  chosen  for  you.  You  may  be  the  only 
son,  or  the  oldest  son,  may  be  thoroughly 
in  love  with  farming,  and  be  entirely  con¬ 
tent  with  the  lot  that  has  been  cast  for 
you.  If  so,  I  count  you  happy,  very 
happy.  If  you  will  now  but  read  and 
think  and  keep  your  eyes  open,  your  ears 
also,  and  become  a  thoroughly  up-to-date 
or  a  little-ahead-of-the-times  farmer,  while 
you  may  not  get  very  rich,  you  will  have 
a  good  chance  to  get  as  much  real  good 
out  of  life  as  any  man  I  know. 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  FUTURE  BUSINESS.  49 


It  may  be,  however,  that  there  are  a 
good  many  of  you,  more  than  the  farm 
will  support;  or  it  may  be  that  you  do  not 
like  farming,  or  that  you  have  the  town 
fever.  You  may  have  neighbors  and 
neighbors’  boys  who  think  that  farmers 
are  an  oppressed  people,  Ishmaelites,  with 
every  man’s  hand  against  them,  and  you 
may  have  taken  up  their  notions;  or  you 
may  really  be  better  fitted  by  nature  for 
something  else  than  farming.  In  either 
case  I  want  to  have  a  square  talk  with  you 
whether  it  does  any  good  or  not.  To  be¬ 
gin  with,  I  do  not  think  that  all  boys  born 
on  the  farm  should  stay  on  it.  There  are 
too  many  of  them.  It  will  take  fewer  and 
fewer  people  to  do  the  farming  of  the 
future,  that  is,  in  proportion  to  population 
— fewer  and  better  farmers.  The  towns 
and  cities  need  this  over-plus  of  the  farm. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  boys  that  other 
professions,  and  when  I  speak  of  the  town 
I  mean  the  members  of  all  the  other  pro¬ 
fessions  and  lines  of  business  which  for 
the  most  part  live  in  town,  can  use.  These 


50 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


kinds  or  classes  of  boys  are,  first,  the  real¬ 
ly  bright,  thinking,  progressive  boys, 
strong  in  health,  vigorous  in  mind,  clear 
in  thought,  energetic  in  action,  honest  in 
purpose;  and  second,  the  young  fellows 
who  do  not  like  the  farm,  who  think  that 
fortunes  can  be  easily  made  in  town,  that 
town  life  is  an  easy  life;  who  are  not  am¬ 
bitious;  who  had  a  soft  snap  on  their  moth¬ 
er’s  breast  when  they  came  into  the  world, 
and  have  been  looking  for  a  soft  snap  ever 
since — born  tired — possibly  not  their  fault, 
who  are  willing  to  be  hitched  and  un--h' 
hitched  like  their  father’s  horses.  +-  The 
town  can  use  these  on  the  streets,  or  in 
the  factories  and  offices  where  the  work 
is  done  by  the  day  or  hour,  and  but  one 
thing  is  to  be  done,  which  becomes  auto¬ 
matic  after  a  while  so  that  they  can  al¬ 
most  fall  asleep  and  keep  on  doing  it. 

This  last  class  is  very  apt  to  take  the 
town  fever.  To  them  it  seems  high  life, 
fine  houses,  nice  lawns,  lighted  and  paved 
streets,  people  well  dressed,  working  in 
shady  offices,  crowds  on  the  streets,  bands 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  FUTURE  BUSINESS.  5  I 

of  music,  pretty  girls,  churches,  theaters, 
games,  society,  comfort.  They  do  not 
know  and  can  not  be  made  to  believe,  ex¬ 
cept  by  experience,  that  every  city  has  a 
White  Chapel  where  vice  reigns  supreme 
and  which  no  city  in  the  world  has  been 
able  to  control  fully,  much  less  entirely 
suppress.  They  do  not  know  the  care¬ 
worn  faces  that  look  out  of  windows  on 
the  back  streets,  filled  with  failures,  tail¬ 
ings,  so  to  speak,  that  the  town  has  hid¬ 
den  out  of  the  way. 

If  you  think,  my  dear  boy,  that  town  life 
is  easier  than  country  life,  on  the  whole, 
or  that  it  gives  more  average  comfort,  or 
that  it  has  less  care  or  requires  less  exer¬ 
tion,  or  that  it  makes  better  men  on  the 
average,  then  you  are  entirely  mistaken. 
The  farm  boys  that  come  to  town  and  in 

v 

ten,  fifteen  or  twenty  years  live  in  those 
fine  houses  and  run  those  large  establish 
ments  and  shape  the  policies  of  the  city 
and  state,  are  of  a  different  class  of  boys 
altogether.  They  are  boys  who  learned 
to  ride  and  shoot  and  tell  the  truth  on  the 

uttWfcRs’v| 


52 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


farm.  The  first  gave  them  courage,  the 
second  accuracy  and  steadiness  of  pur¬ 
pose,  and  the  third  that  integrity  that  lies 
at  the  basis  of  all  success  in  life;  in  short, 
the  qualities  that  make  a  man  a  success 
on  the  farm  will  make  him  a  success  in 
the  city. 

If  you  wish  to  choose  some  other  pro¬ 
fession  or  business,  and  I  do  not  say  that 
you  should  not,  you  should  understand, 
first  of  all,  that  success  can  be  won  in 
none  without  indomitable  energy,  hard 
work,  and  a  determination  to  succeed  that 
can  be  baffled  by  no  difficulty,  and  above 
all  things  else,  without  integrity  of  char¬ 
acter.  I  wish  to  whisper  in  your  ear  that 
you  can  acquire  these  things  better  on  the 
farm  than  you  can  anywhere  else;  there¬ 
fore  do  not  be  in  a  hurry  about  choosing 
your  profession.  Your  constant  care 
should  be  to  acquire  those  qualities  that 
lie  at  the  basis  of  success  in  any  business 
that  a  man  ought  to  follow;  in  other  words, 
of  any  honest  business.  When  you  are 
rooted  and  grounded  in  these,  it  is  entire- 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  FUTURE  BUSINESS.  53 

ly  safe  to  choose  that  business  that  suits 
your  inclinations  and  that  opens  up  nat¬ 
urally  to  you. 

I  am  a  great  believer  in  Providence,  by 
which  I  do  not  mean  anything  supernat¬ 
ural  or  special.  I  believe  that  every  boy’s 
life  is  a  plan  of  God,  and  that  if  he  ac¬ 
quires  character,  integrity  or  complete 
wholeness  or  soundness — that  is,  becomes 
what  farmers  call  a  straight  up  and  down 
man — there  will  be  an  opening  that  will 
lead  him  into  the  line  of  business  he  ought 
to  follow.  I  believe  that  if  a  man  pre¬ 
pares  himself  by  acquiring  all  the  inform¬ 
ation  possible,  avoiding  bad  habits,  bad 
company,  and  uses  his  time  to  the  best 
advantage,  matters  will  so  shape  them¬ 
selves  that  he  will  find  himself  in  the 
place  where  he  of  right  belongs.  Oppor¬ 
tunities  come  right  along  to  the  man  who 
is  ready  to  use  them.  If  the  farm  boy  has 
acquired  habits  of  industry,  economy, 
truthfulness  and  uprightness,  and  his 
inclination  leads  him  to  be  a  preacher, 
lawyer,  physician  or  business  man,  he 


54  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

need  not  have  the  slightest  fear  of  fail¬ 
ure  barring  accidents  and  sickness,  or 
an  ill-fated  marriage,  if  he  will  but  take 
the  first  opening  that  points  in  the  direc¬ 
tion  of  his  inclinations.  Rest  assured, 
however,  that  nothing  worth  having  in 
this  life  ever  comes  without  hard  work, 
clear  thinking  and  right  living. 

There  are,  perhaps,  some  boys  on  the 
farm  who  imagine  there  is  some  short  cut 
to  wealth;  that  dishonesty  wins;  that 
rogues  prosper;  and  that  it  is  little  matter 
how  you  get  money,  or  office,  provided 
only  you  get  it.  This  is  about  the  worst 
mistake  any  boy  can  possibly  make,  and 
the  boy  who  has  that  notion  and  does  not 
get  over  it,  can  be  very  safely  set  down  as 
a  foreordained  failure.  There  is  nothing 
in  this  world  that  pays  as  large  a  dividend 
in  the  long  run,  as  good  old-fashioned 
honesty.  I  do  not  mean  the  corporation 
style  of  honesty.  I  mean  old-fashioned 
uprightness,  which  is  more  than  paying 
debts,  and  much  more  than  telling  the 
truth  in  form.  It  is  doing  the  right  thing 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  FUTURE  BUSINESS.  55 

at  the  right  time,  in  the  right  way,  with 
every  man,  whether  friend  oi  foe,  at  all 
times  and  everywhere.  There  are  not  half 
enough  of  men  imbued  with  this  kind  of 
uprightness  to  meet  the  demands.  They 
are  wanted  in  every  great  store,  factory 
and  bank,  and  it  is  this  kind  of  men  that 
in  the  end  lead  in  all  the  professions.  A 
farm  is  the  best  place  in  the  world  to  grow 
them;  therefore,  do  not  be  in  a  hurry  to 
leave  the  farm,  and  do  not  make  a  final 
choice  of  your  profession  or  business  until 
you  are  sure  you  are  doing  the  right  thing. 
If  you  conclude  to  stay  on  the  farm  and 
be  a  really  up-to-date  farmer,  I  am  sure 
that  you  will  get  the  maximum  of  com¬ 
fort.  If  you  choose  something  else  and 
succeed,  you  will,  in  all  probability,  after 
success  has  been  achieved,  want  to  go 
back  to  the  farm.  The  most  of  the  farm 
boys  who  have  the  town  fever  and  come 
to  town  and  fail,  would  get  back  if  they 
could.  Mind  you,  I  do  not  say  that  you 
should  not  leave  the  farm,  but  do  not  be 
in  a  hurry  to  make  up  your  mind. 

Uncle  Henry. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  FUN. 

My  Dear  Boy: 

I  have  written  to  you  heretofore  on  the 
serious  things  of  life,  the  matters  that  will 
affect  directly  your  future  usefulness,  and 
the  neglect  or  observance  of  which  will 
do  very  much  to  make  you  a  failure  or 
success  in  life.  I  have  said  nothing  about 
amusements,  or  as  you  say,  “fun/’  and 
you  may,  perhaps,  wonder  whether  your 
father  and  your  Uncle  Henry  ever  had  any 
fun  when  they  were  boys.  Your  father, 
perhaps,  does  not  say  much  to  you  about 
his  boyhood.  He  is  so  much  concerned 
in  looking  after  his  farm  and  stock  that 
he  says  little  to  you  about  the  fun  he  had 
when  he  was  a  boy,  thinking  perhaps  it 
beneath  the  dignity  of  a  grave,  middle- 
aged  and  busy  man.  You  sometimes  won- 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  FUN. 


57 


der  whether  he  ever  had  a  boy’s  life, 
whether  he  learned  to  dance,  to  shoot  or 
skate,  or  play  foot-ball;  or  whether  he 
went  to  the  show  or  circus.  You  can 
make  up  your  mind  that  he  went  to  the 
show,  and,  after  looking  at  the  wild  ani¬ 
mals  hastily,  took  in  the  circus  every 
chance  he  got,  and  that  your  grandfather 
went  with  him  to  see  that  no  harm  hap¬ 
pened  to  him,  and  that  your  father  might 
have  been  seen  eating  gingerbread  and 
casting  sheep’s  eyes  at  one  of  the  prettiest 
girls  in  the  neighborhood,  who  may  now 
perhaps  be  your  mother.  Besides,  he  no 
doubt  went  ’coon  hunting  in  August  and 
September,  went  to  corn  huskings,  per¬ 
haps  was  the  captain  at  one  of  these  an¬ 
cient  contests,  and  was  on  the  lookout  for 
red  ears;  and  if  you  ask  him  he  may  tell 
you  what  that  means.  He  went  to  apple- 
butter  boilings,  and  to  wood  choppings 
when  there  was  a  quilting  bee  at  the  same 
house  at  the  same  time,  and  if  a  fiddler 
would  even  now  strike  up  one  of  the  old, 
simple  melodies.  I’ll  venture  that  you 


58 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


would  notice  a  far-away,  reminiscent  look 
in  his  eyes  and  his  feet  might  even  keep 
time  to  the  long  forgotten  music. 

If  he  did  not  go  to  all  these  things, 
your  Uncle  Henry  did,  and  a  right  good 
time  he  had,  particularly  when  it  came  to 
getting  away  with  the  nice  things  with 
which  the  tables  groaned  in  those  days. 
There  was  something  particularly  fine 
about  the  pies  and  cakes,  fried  chicken, 
sweet  potatoes,  doughnuts  and  apple 
dumplings.  Sometimes  I  wonder  whether 
women  have  forgotten  how  to  make  these 
things;  and  then  again  I  wonder  whether 
a  boy’s  appetite  does  not  account  for  the 
superiority  of  the  old-time  cooking.  I 
presume  the  last  is  the  correct  solution. 
To  be  perfectly  honest  about  it,  I  would 
rather  go  ’coon  hunting  even  yet,  than  go 
to  base  ball  or  football,  and  if  I  heard  the 
well  known  bark  of  the  best  ’coon  dog  in 
the  neighborhood  that  showed  a  ’coon  up 
a  tree  at  midnight,  I  think  I  would  get  up 
at  once  and  start  after  that  ’coon  a  good 
deal  more  readily  than  I  was  accustomed 
to  get  up  on  a  cold  morning. 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  FUN. 


59 


Your  father,  if  he  is  the  wise  man  I  take 
him  to  be,  wants  you  to  have  fun,  not  as 
the  business  of  life,  but  as  recreation;  and 
your  Uncle  Henry  regards  fun,  genuine, 
kindly  fun,  as  essential  to  a  boy’s  devel¬ 
opment  as  food,  clothing,  or  education. 
In  fact,  amusement  is  education  in  the 
broadest,  truest  sense  of  the  word;  but  it 
should  be  the  spice  of  life  and  not  the 
substantiate;  the  pie  and  custard  after  the 
meal,  and  not  the  meal  itself.  There  is, 
however,  healthy  and  wholesome  fun,  and 
unhealthy  and  vicious  fun.  The  one  is 
life,  the  other  is  death.  One  develops 
true  manhood,  the  other  dwarfs  it.  The 
boy  who  learns  to  enjoy  the  right  kind  of 
fun  when  a  boy,  will  enjoy  it  all  his  days; 
and  the  more  genuine  fun  he  has  as  a  boy 
and  man  as  the  diversion  of  life,  the  longer 
he  is  likely  to  live  and  the  better  his  life 
is  likely  to  be.  I  expect  to  have  fun,  or 
diversion,  all  my  days,  and  the  longer  I 
live  the  better  I  seem  to  enjoy  it. 

Now,  as  to  these  different  kinds  of  fun. 
There  is  no  real,  genuine  fun  in  anything 


6o 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


that  is  bad  or  vicious,  nor  is  there  any  fun 
in  anything  you  would  be  ashamed  to 
have  your  mother  know  all  about.  There 
is  no  genuine  fun  in  playing  with  a  deck 
of  greasy  cards  in  the  hay  loft.  If  your 
mother  approves  of  playing  cards,  do  it  in 
the  sitting  room;  if  she  does  not  approve 
of  it,  do  not  play  at  all.  I  do  not  know 
one  card  from  another,  and  I  do  not  think 
I  will  lose  anything  if  I  never  learn. 

There  is  no  genuine  fun  in  inflicting 
needless  pain  on  anything  that  lives.  The 
fun  that  does  a  boy  good  nearly  always 
involves  some  kind  of  physical  exercise, 
and  with  that  skill  of  a  high  order.  Every 
boy  should  learn  to  shoot,  to  ride,  to  swim, 
to  play  ball  where  the  games  do  not  nec¬ 
essarily  involve  risk  of  life  or  limb,  or  an 
undue  strain  on  some  physical  organ.  I 
do  not  like  some  features  of  football;  but 
it  has,  nevertheless,  the  essential  feature 
of  all  good  outdoor  games,  intense  energy 
in  action.  That  is  what  we  all  enjoy, 
whether  in  a  horse  race,  dog  fight,  base 
ball  or  football,  and  the  farm  boy  natur- 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  FUN. 


6 1 


ally  takes  to  amusements  which  require 
physical  exercise  rather  than  such  games 
as  chess  and  billiards,  which  require  more 
delicate  skill  and  calculation,  and  for  the 
same  reason  that  lambs  and  colts  and 
calves  and  even  pigs  play — to  develop 
their  muscles.  As  we  get  older  and  the 
muscular  system  becomes  fully  developed, 
we  care  less  for  these  exciting  games  and 
take  our  amusement  in  a  quieter  way. 

Fun,  however,  is  not  all  physical.  Every 
farm  boy  should  belong  to  a  lyceum  or 
literary,  and  should  cultivate  by  way  of 
amusement,  not  merely  the  intellectual 
side  of  his  nature,  but  his  sense  of  wit  and 
humor.  It  will  be  a  great  help  to  every 
farm  boy  in  after  life  if  he  will  learn  how 
to  be  a  good  story  teller.  Story  tellers, 
we  are  quite  well  aware,  are  born  and  not 
made;  so  are  orators  and  poets;  but  every 
boy  who  is  not  totally  devoid  of  wit  and 
humor,  can  learn  to  be  a  reasonably  good 
story  teller  if  he  will  but  study  and  prac¬ 
tice.  I  have  always  regretted  that  I  failed 
to  join  a  club  while  at  college,  which  met 


62 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


once  a  month  for  the  sole  purpose  of 
practicing  telling  first-class  stories.  The 
man  who  can  tell  a  clean  story  that  spar¬ 
kles  with  wit  and  humor  is  always  a  favor¬ 
ite.  He  is  the  life  of  every  company.  It 
makes  success  as  a  public  speaker  sure  to 
begin  with,  and  the  ability  to  tell  a  first- 
class  story  or  get  off  a  real  good  joke, 
helps  a  man  out  of  many  difficulties  all 
through  life.  A  farm  boy  can  have  plenty 
of  clean  fun  in  learning  how  to  tell  a  good 
story.  In  fact,  I  know  of  no  better  way 
You  will  see,  therefore,  my  dear  boy, 
that  your  father  and  I  want  you  to  have 
lots  of  fun.  There  is  no  reason  why  your 
life  should  not  have  sport  in  it  and  plenty 
of  it.  You  will  be  all  the  better  for  it 
both  as  boy  and  man.  “All  work  and  no 
play  makes  Jack  a  dull  boy.”  Fun  is  not 
the  end  of  life  by  any  means,  but  it  makes 
life  better  worth  the  living.  Only  let  the 
fun  be  clean  and  wholesome,  whether  it 
be  in  the  line  of  sports  which  develop 
strength  of  muscle,  steadiness  of  aim, 
skill  of  hand,  control  of  nerves,  or  whether 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  FUN. 


63 


it  be  in  games  that  require  accurate  calcu¬ 
lation,  or  whether  in  telling  stories  or 
jokes.  No  right-minded  boy  will  ever 
willingly  listen  to  a  vulgar,  or  even  half¬ 
vulgar  story,  no  matter  how  funny  it  may 
be.  This  is  absolutely  corrupting.  There 
is  no  reason  why  a  farm  boy  when  he  comes 
of  age,  should  not  have  had  twenty-one 
years  of  life  as  full  of  joy  as  can  be  exper¬ 
ienced  off  the  farm  or  on  the  farm  in  the 
twenty-one  years  that  follow,  provided 
always  that  he  lives  in  a  fairly  good  neigh¬ 
borhood.  Even  if  he  does  not,  he  can  get 
more  real  fun  out  of  the  colts  and  calves 
and  pigs,  and  especially  out  of  a  first-class 
collie  or  other  well  bred  dog,  than  the 
town  boy  can  get  out  of  all  the  sources  of 
amusement  that  are  at  his  disposal.  After 
all,  there  is  no  place  on  earth  where  real 
genuine  fun  can  be  had  so  cheaply  and  so 
easily  as  on  a  well  managed  stock  farm. 

Uncle  Henry. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  EDUCATION. 

My  Dear  Boy: 

You  are,  perhaps,  growing  restive  on 
the  farm.  It  has  been  the  dream  of  your 
life  to  secure  an  education.  You  have 
envied  the  man  who  could  talk  well  from 
the  pulpit  or  platform;  who  could  write 
for  the  newspapers;  and  you  attributed 
this  power  to  the  fact  that  he  had  some 
time  or  other  secured  an  education.  You 
have  heard  it  stated  so  often  that  an  edu¬ 
cation  is  a  fortune  in  itself,  that  could  not 
be  stolen  or  lost  or  burnt  up,  that  you  be¬ 
lieve  it,  and  think  that  your  fortune  would 
be  made  if  you  could  secure  an  education. 
You  have,  perhaps,  talked  to  your  father 
about  it  and  he  has  discouraged  you.  He 
has  possibly  said  to  you,  as  mine  did  to 
me  over  and  over  again,  that  an  education 


THE  FA  /M  BOY  AND  HIS  EDUCATION.  65 

would  unfit  you  for  the  farm;  or  perhaps, 
that  he  would  like  above  all  things  to  give 
you  an  education,  but  that  an  education  is 
expensive,  and  that  it  is  entirely  beyond 
his  power,  consistent  with  his  obligations 
to  your  brothers  and  sisters.  You  have 
talked  with  your  mother  about  it,  and  she 
sympathizes  with  you,  tells  you  she  will 
lo  the  best  she  can,  perhaps  cries  over 
the  fact  that  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  the 
family  to  afford  you  this  education.  You 
have,  perhaps,  become  discouraged  over 
this  state  of  affairs  and  concluded  after  all 
that  there  is  nothing  left  for  you  but  to 
plod  along,  make  a  living  as  best  you  can, 
crippled  for  life  for  want  of  an  education 
which  some  of  your  chums  are  in  a  fair 
way  to  receive. 

If  so,  you  are  taking  a  view  of  the  sub¬ 
ject  entirely  too  dismal.  There  are  three 
points  I  would  like  you  to  bear  in  mind: 
First,  that  there  are  hundreds,  yes  thou¬ 
sands,  of  graduates  of  colleges  who  would 
like  to  change  places  with  you  provided 
they  had  the  money  they  have  spent  for 


66 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


their  education.  They  would  use  it  to 
make  a  first  payment  on  an  “eighty”  and 
Jvtock  it,  and  be  content  to  be  farmers  all 
their  days. 

Second,  that  there  are  thousands  of 
boys  of  your  age  that  are  now  receiving 
an  education  who,  when  they  graduate, 
will  have  contracted  expensive  habits  and 
will  be  kicked  around  by  practical  busi¬ 
ness  men  like  old  shoes  in  the  street,  for 
the  simple  reason  that  their  education  has 
not  taught  them  to  do  any  one  thing  well. 

Third,  that  a  large  per  cent,  of  the  men 
who  are  moulding  and  shaping  the  poli¬ 
cies  of  the  neighborhood,  of  the  state,  and 
of  the  nation,  had  no  better  opportunities 
for  an  education  than  lie  clearly  within 
your  reach.  They  succeeded  and  you  can, 
provided  you  have  sufficient  sand,  or  clear 
grit,  to  succeed. 

First,  I  would  like  you  to  get  a  clear 
idea  of  what  an  education  that  is  of 
any  practical  value,  really  is.  It  is  not 
something  that  can  be  poured  into  you  as 
you  would  pour  water  into  a  bucket.  A 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  EDUCATION.  6? 

good  many  townspeople  and  some  farmers 
talk  about  sending  their  children  away  to 
be  educated,  as  they  send  the  sugar  box  to 
the  store  to  be  filled.  This  cannot  be 
done,  no  matter  what  time  or  money  may 
be  at  hand.  The  human  mind  takes  in 
knowledge  as  the  plant  takes  up  moisture, 
by  free  action  from  within,  and  grows,  and 
is  trained  or  educated  by  the  act  of  appro¬ 
priating  knowledge.  No  teacher,  no  book, 
no  school  or  college  can  educate  you. 
You  must  educate  yourself.  You  envy  the 
town  boy  who  has  the  opportunity  of  go¬ 
ing  to  the  high  school  where  he  can  learn 
Latin  and  Greek,  higher  mathematics, 
geology,  botany,  and  all  that,  without 
paying  either  board  or  tuition.  You  say 
that  if  you  had  that  chance  you  would  get 
an  education.  That  depends  on  what  sort 
of  a  boy  you  are.  The  education  you 
would  get  in  this,  or  any  other,  school 
would  depend  on  how  hungry  you  are  for 
knowledge,  how  willing  you  are  to  apply 
yourself,  and  the  natural  strength  of  your 
mind.  As  a  rule,  I  do  not  believe  the 


68 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


town  boy  who  graduates  from  the  high 
school  is  any  better  fitted  for  the  duties 
of  life  than  the  country  boy  who  gradu¬ 
ates  from  a  good  country  school  at  the 
corner  of  four  sections.  The  town  boy 
knows  more  things,  perhaps,  but  the  prob¬ 
ability  is  that  he  does  not  know  them  any 
better  and  lacks  the  superabundant  health, 
the  keen,  inquiring  mind,  and  the  practical 
knowledge  that  the  farm  boy  must  acquire 
on  the  farm  if  he  is  worth  raising. 

Before  going  any  further,  let  me  ask 
you  if  you  have  gotten  all  you  can  get 
out  of  the  little  white  school  house  at  the 
corner  of  the  four  sections?  Have  you 
mastered  the  three  R’s — reading  ’ritin*,  and 
’rithmetic?  Are  you  quite  sure  that  you 
are  thorough  master  of  these?  Can  you 
solve  all  the  problems  that  come  up  on 
the  farm?  Can  you  measure  the  different 
fields  and  tell  how  many  acres  are  in  them 
as  accurately  as  your  father  can,  who  has 
plowed  them  for  the  last  ten  or  fifteen 
years?  Can  you  tell  how  many  bushels 
of  corn  there  are  in  the  different  cribs? 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  EDUCATION.  69 

How  many  cubic  feet  of  air  there  are  in 
each  room  in  the  house?  How  many  gal¬ 
lons  the  well  or  cistern  will  hold?  Ca- 
you  spell  accurately  and  pronounce  cor¬ 
rectly?  Can  you  punctuate?  Can  you 
write  a  legible  hand,  and  read  so  as  to 
convey  to  the  hearer  the  sense  of  what 
you  read?  You  can  learn  all  these  things 
at  the  country  school,  and  if  you  can  do 
all  this,  you  can  do  more  than  some  col¬ 
lege  graduates  I  know.  If  not,  you  had 
better  take  down  your  school  books  and 
master  their  contents  so  thoroughly  that 
they  will  be  like  the  iron  in  your  blood. 

Do  not  think  for  a  moment  that  I  un¬ 
dervalue  an  education.  No  one  can  well 
value  it  more  highly  than  your  Uncle 
Henry.  It  is  the  educated  mind  that 
rules  the  world,  from  the  farm  to  the 
throne.  I  want  you  to  have  an  education 
that  will  bring  out  the  best  that  is  in  you, 
and  I  want  you  to  get  it  yourself,  the  only 
way  this  kind  of  an  education  can  ever  be 
had;  and  the  place  to  begin  is  with  the 
three  R’s,  and  just  where  you  are  on  the 
farm.  If  you  are  determined  to  have  this 


70 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


sort  of  an  education,  nothing  can  keep 
you  from  it.  “Who  wills,  can.”  Until 
you  give  up  yourself  you  can  never  be 
beaten  in  anything  you  undertake  to  do 
that  can  possibly  be  done.  If  you  are,  I 
had  rather  not  say  contented,  but  deter- 
termined  to  be  a  farmer,  which  I  hope 
you  are,  you  can  be  a  fine,  well  educated 
farmer,  without  any  financial  aid  from 
anybody. 

Devote  the  next  year  or  two  to  master¬ 
ing  thoroughly  the  subjects  taught  in  your 
common  school.  Get  on  good  terms  with 
the  teacher  whether  you  go  to  school  or 
not,  and  get  his,  or  her,  help.  Put  your 
wits  to  work  in  gathering  together  enough 
money  in  the  next  year  to  give  you  one 
term  at  the  Agricultural  college  of  your 
state.  Send  for  a  catalogue,  map  out  the 
studies  that  you  intend  to  pursue,  and 
keep  your  mind  constantly  at  work  in  that 
direction.  If  you  accomplish  these  two 
things  in  the  next  year,  or  two  years,  you 
will  have  made  a  first-class  start  in  the 
direction  of  getting  an  education,  and 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  EDUCATION.  71 

when  you  go  to  school  you  will  go  with  a 
first-class  thirst  for  knowledge,  with  a  de¬ 
termination  to  get  it,  and  a  clear  idea  of 
the  value  of  every  dollar.  The  boy  who 
starts  in  in  this  way  will  “educate”  twice  as 
fast  as  the  boy  whose  father  sends  him  to 
be  educated  with  plenty  of  spending 
money. 

Meanwhile,  do  not  neglect  your  reading, 
but  be  careful  what  you  read.  The  habit 
of  reading  worthless  books  is  not  a  virtue 
but  a  vice.  The  habit  of  skimming  over 
good  books  is  a  vice  of  scarcely  less  mag¬ 
nitude.  The  man  to  be  prized  by  friend 
and  dreaded  by  foe  is  the  man  who  reads 
few  books,  but  those  of  the  best,  and 
reads  them  so  that  he  not  merely  knows 
all  they  contain,  but  catches  their  spirit. 

Whether  you  are  to  be  a  farmer  or  a 
professional  man,  give  close  attention  to 
farm  problems.  One  of  the  worst  hum¬ 
bugs  of  the  day  is  the  idea  that  prevails 
among  educated  men  that  a  knowledge 
of  the  dead  languages  is  very  impor¬ 
tant,  if  not  essential,  to  the  training,  or 


72 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


education,  of  the  mind.  That  their  study 
gives  this  training  is  true.  They  act  as  a 
grindstone  to  sharpen  the  mind;  but  the 
problems  on  the  farm,  the  question  of  the 
movement  of  the  water  in  the  soil,  the 
structure  of  the  plant,  the  methods  of 
digestion  and  assimilation  of  food  by  live 
stock,  the  detection  of  diseases  among 
plants  and  animals,  and  the  best  methods 
of  prevention  and  cure,  furnish  the  mater¬ 
ial  for  just  as  good  a  grindstone  upon 
which  to  sharpen  your  mind,  as  the  lan¬ 
guage  that  some  people  used  who  have 
been  dead  about  two  thousand  years.  Ed¬ 
ucation,  after  all,  is  simply  the  fitting  of 
the  eye  to  see,  of  the  hand  to  work,  of  the 
mind  to  perceive  truth,  of  the  tongue  or 
pen  to  express  it;  and  it  is  by  the  practice 
of  all  these  that  we  educate  ourselves  and 
become  strong,  true  men.  You  will  see, 
therefore,  that  education  is  not  a  bonanza 
given  to  the  rich;  that  it  is  something  that 
can  not  be  cornered  like  grain  on  the  mar¬ 
ket;  that  it  is  something  of  which  the  man 
can  not  be  deprived  who  has  the  deter- 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  EDUCATION.  73 

mination  to  get  it,  and  that  the  share  of 
the  education  which  any  man  can  receive 
under  any  circumstances,  is  determined 
mainly  by  two  things:  his  natural  endow¬ 
ments  and  his  determination  to  develop 
them.  Neither  money,  nor  schools,  nor 
teachers,  nor  position,  nor  anything  else 
can  make  a  strong  man  out  of  a  boy  who 
has  not  the  brains  to  begin  with,  or  who 
has  not  the  thirst  for  knowledge  and  the 
determination  to  get  it.  If  you  have  these 
you  will  get  the  education,  no  matter  how 
far  off  it  may  seem  now.  If  you  do  not 
have  them,  nothing  in  this  world  can  give 
you  a  real  education. 

It  will  help  you  a  good  deal  if  you  will 
from  time  to  time  inquire  into  the  history 
of  men  that  are  making  things  go  about 
their  way  in  state  and  nation.  Many  of 
these  men  never  saw  the  inside  of  a  col¬ 
lege,  of  an  academy,  or  a  high  school. 
They  had  no  more  money  with  which  to 
obtain  an  education  than  you  have.  They 
do  not  now  have  what  the  world  would  call 
an  education,  but  they  have  the  real  ed- 


74 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


ucation,  the  development  of  the  mind,  the 
power  that  the  real  education  gives;  and 
that  is  what  you  are  after,  or  should  be; 
and  having  that  you  have  everything. 
What  you  need  is  to  be  thoroughly  waked 
up.  I  have  had  many  teachers  in  the 
course  of  my  life,  some  of  them  drill  mas¬ 
ters  and  grad-grinds  who  pounded  a  lot 
of  knowledge  into  me  which  was  of  no 
particular  use  then,  or  ever  afterwards; 
and  others  who  filled  me  with  boundless 
enthusiasm;  who  set  before  me  a  high 

ideal  intellectually  and  morally;  and  the 

> 

latter  are  the  only  profitable  teachers  I 

ever  had.  This  is  precisely  what  I  am 

trying  to  do  for  you.  If  I  can  thoroughly 

awaken  you  to  the  fact  that  there  is  but 

one  life  before  you,  that  you  must  make 

the  very  best  out  of  the  talent  nature  has 

given  you,  must  “hitch  your  wagon  to  a 

star,”  if  you  want  to  get  along,  I  shall 

have  done  what  I  started  out  to  do  in 

writing  these  letters;  and  if  you  take  my 

advice,  you  will  thank  me  to  your  dying 

dav. 

* 


Uncle  Henry. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  START  IN  LIFE. 

My  Dear  Boy: 

You  have  no  doubt  from  time  to  time, 
heard  your  father  or  your  mother,  or  both, 
say  that  if  they  could  only  live  to  see 
their  children  well  started  in  life,  they 
would  be  entirely  satisfied.  For  this  they 
cheerfully  toil,  save  and  endure  hardships 
and  privations  that  come  to  all  of  us 
sooner  or  later.  They  are  not  so  particu¬ 
lar  as  to  what  business  or  profession  their  . 
children  may  adopt.  They  would  prefer 
to  have  them  become  farmers  and  far¬ 
mer’s  wives,  and  settle  somewhere  near 
them;  for  to  the  parents  the  children  are 
children  long  after  the  grandchildren 
come.  While  they  would  prefer,  as  a  rule, 
that  their  children  should  be  farmers,  they 
will  not  object  to  one  or  more  of  them 


76  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

engaging  in  business.  Many  mothers 
would  like  to  have  one  of  their  sons  be¬ 
come  a  preacher;  and  every  mother  would 
like  to  see  her  daughters  married  to  men 
of  good  character  and  well-to-do.  This 
is  what  they  mean  by  “a  start  in  life.” 

If  you  keep  your  ears  open  when  talk¬ 
ing  to  farmers  who  have  not  succeeded 
well,  you  will  frequently  hear  them  say 
that  the  trouble  with  them  was  that  they 
never  had  “a  start.”  Other  men  have  suc¬ 
ceeded  because  they  had  a  start.  Some 
lay  the  blame  for  not  having  a  start  to 
being  born  poor;  others  to  ill-health; 
others  to  a  sickly  wife  or  children;  and  a 
few  are  honest  enough  to  admit  that  they 
spent  their  best  years  in  sowing  wild  oats 
and  are  now  reaping  the  harvest.  They 
have  evidently  given  up  the  hope  of  ever 
doing  more  than  making  some  sort  of  a 
living,  for  the  reason  that  they  failed  to 
get  a  good  start  at  the  right  time.  If  you 
will  get  on  as  intimate  terms  as  you  can 
with  the  men  who  have  made  a  success  of 
farming,  (and  I  advise  you  on  general  prin- 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  START  IN  LIFE.  77 

ciples  to  do  this,)  some  of  these  men  may 
tell  you  how  it  was  that  they  got  their 
start  while  others  failed.  You  will  be  sur¬ 
prised  if  you  get  down  into  the  history  of 
the  lives  of  successful  men  to  learn  how 
few  of  them  ever  got  a  start  in  the  way  of 
money  being  given  to  them  by  relatives. 
You  will  find  in  almost  every  case  that 
these  successful  men  made  their  own 
start;  and  where  they  did  not  make  their 
own  start,  they  were  thoroughly,  and,  as 
they  thought  at  the  time,  severely  trained 
by  parents  who  knew  from  their  own  ex¬ 
perience  some  things  which  I  will  try  to 
tell  you  in  this  letter. 

The  point  I  wish  to  impress  upon  your 
mind  first,  is  that  this  getting  a  start  is 
one  of  the  most  important  things  in  your 
life.  You  came  into  this  world,  if  I  recol¬ 
lect  right,  about  eighteen  or  twenty  years 
ago.  Time  has  been  pushing  you  on  right 
along.  It  has  never  stopped  a  minute  for 
you  to  think  what  you  will  do.  It  will 
never  stop  until  it  pushes  you  through  to 
the  other  world.  It  gives  you  one  chance, 


7$  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

and  only  one.  By  this  I  mean  that  you 
have  but  one  life  to  live,  and  if  you  are  to 
make  a  success  in  life,  you  must  start 
right.  If  you  fail  in  this,  while  you  may 
redeem  yourself  to  a  greater  or  less  ex¬ 
tent,  you  will  never  be  the  man  that  your 
mother  and  father  hope  you  will  be,  or 
that  your  Creator  intended  you  to  be.  As 
time  will  not  stop  for  you  to  think,  you 
had  better  do  a  good  deal  of  solid  think¬ 
ing  while  your  time  is  going  on,  as  to  how 
you  can  make  the  right  kind  of  a  start  in 
life.  You  will  never  in  all  your  life  spend 
time  more  profitably. 

In  the  first  place, I  want  you  to  rid  your¬ 
self  entirely  of  the  idea  that  a  start  in  life 
means  only  the  accumulation  by  inheri¬ 
tance,  by  gift,  by  trickery  of  one  kind  or 
another,  or  even  by  honest  work,  of 
enough  money  to  set  you  up  in  business. 
More  or  less  money  is  essential  to  a  suc¬ 
cessful  start  in  life;  but  after  all  it  is  not 
the  start,  even  when  earned  by  your  own 
hands  and  brain.  It  is  the  evidence  that 
the  start  has  been  made,  but  it  is  not  by 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HrS  START  IN  LIFE.  7 9 

any  means  the  start.  Most  farm  boys 
think  that  if  they  had  a  thousand  dollars, 
or  even  five  hundred,  they  would  be  well 
started.  They  say,  “It  takes  money  to 
make  money ;”  and  while  there  is  some 
truth  in  this,  it  is  not  by  any  means  the 
whole  truth.  The  real  start  in  life  does 
not  consist  in  what  a  man  has,  but  what 
he  is;  and  the  value  of  a  money  start  is 
not  in  the  money  at  all,  but  in  the  quali¬ 
ties  of  body,  mind  and  heart  that  have 
been  developed  in  making  that  money 
honestly.  The  boy  who  is  shrewd  enough 
and  dishonest  enough  to  make  a  thousand 
dollars  by  the  time  he  is  twenty-five  years 
old,  by  sharp  practice,  by  overreaching,  or 
by  gambling  on  the  Board  of  Trade,  may 
think  he  has  made  a  good  start.  Some  of 
his  neighbors  may  think  so,  too.  His 
father  and  mother  maybe  foolishly  proud 
of  him;  but  I  want  to  tell  you  that  he  has 
made  a  start  the  wrong  way,  and  it  were 
a  thousand  times  better  for  him  if  he  had 
saved  a  hundred  dollars  in  that  time  by 
honest  work  and  careful  economy.  In  the 


8o 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOT. 


last  forty  years  your  Uncle  Henry  has 
seen  a  good  many  young  men  make  that 
kind  of  a  start,  and  to-day  he  can  not 
think  of  one  of  them  who  is  not  either 
scratchinga  poor  man’s  head,  or  has  failed 
to  retain  the  confidence  of  those  who  know 
him. 

If  you  are  to  succeed  you  must  get  a 
start  of  the  right  kind,  and  you  cannot  get 
that  without  a  good  deal  of  hard  work, 
close  economy,  and  more  or  less  of  self- 
sacrifice.  You  will  have  to  work,  and  you 
will  have  to  think,  and  you  will  have  to  do 
without  a  good  many  things  which  at  the 
first  blush  you  would  like  to  have.  I  will 
first  tell  you  about  some  ways  in  which 
you  will  not  get  a  start.  You  will  not  get 
the  right  kind  of  a  start  by  going  in  debt 
for  a  courting  buggy,  to  spend  your  even¬ 
ings  in  going  to  dances,  circuses,  etc.,  with 
some  good  looking  girl,  who,  if  she  would 
speak  out,  does  not  value  you  above  one 
of  her  hairpins,  who  eats  your  caramels 
and  ice  cream,  thinking,  if  she  thinks 
about  you  at  all,  that  you  are  a  silly  goose 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  START  IN  LIFE.  8l 


for  wasting  your  substance  in  that  kind  of 
entertainment.  She  more  than  half  sus¬ 
pects  that  the  buggy  is  not  paid  for,  she 
knows  you  are  wearing  more  stylish 
clothes  than  you  can  afford,  and  she 
secretly  makes  up  her  mind  that  while  she 
will  have  all  the  fun  she  can  with  you,  she 
will  say  “Yes”  to  an  entirely  different  sort 
of  a  fellow. 

You  will  not  get  a  start  in  life  by  form¬ 
ing  the  bad  habit  of  smoking  or  chewing, 
or  drinking  beer  and  an  occasional  glass 
of  whisky,  nor  by  having  “a  high  old  time” 
when  you  go  to  Chicago  with  a  carload 
of  your  father’s  cattle. 

You  will  not  get  a  very  good  start  in 
life  by  imagining  that,  being  raised  on  the 
farm,  you  therefore  know  all  about  farm¬ 
ing,  concluding  that  books  and  papers 
that  discuss  farm  problems  are  not  worth 
your  notice. 

No  matter  what  business  you  may  choose, 
there  are  three  or  four  things  that  you 
must  have  if  you  are  to  start  right  in  life. 


82 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


You  must  have  a  capacity  for  steady,  end¬ 
less,  hard  work.  There  is  no  honest  busi¬ 
ness  or  profession  in  life  in  which  this  is 
not  a  prime  requisite  and  an  absolute  con¬ 
dition  of  success. 

You  must  think  as  well  as  work.  It 
takes  more  than  hard  work  to  win.  It  is 
hard,  intelligent  work,  where  the  thinking 
brain  guides  the  hand,  working  according 
to  a  well  defined  purpose.  My  father 
used  to  say  to  me:  “Henry,  if  you  don’t 
think,  it  makes  very  little  difference 
whether  you  work  or  not.”  That  was 
sound  advice  fifty  years  ago;  it  is  sounder 
advice  to-day  than  it  was  then. 

Getting  a  start  in  life  means  being  ab¬ 
solutely  honest.  I  do  not  mean  by  honesty 
merely  the  willingness  to  pay  debts.  That 
is  a  part  of  honesty,  but  a  small  part.  I  mean 
uprightness,  integrity,  reliability,  truthful¬ 
ness.  I  mean  that  quality  embraced  in 
all  these  words  that  will  lead  your  neigh¬ 
bors  and  all  who  have  any  business  with 
you,  to  rely  absolutely  upon  you,  with  the 
utmost  confidence  that  you  will  do  what 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  START  IN  LIFE.  83 

you  say  you  will  do,  and  that  you  can  be 
depended  upon  under  any  circumstances; 
or,  in  the  expressive  language  of  the  farm, 
you  “will  do  to  tie  to.” 

Now,  the  value  of  the  first  thousand 
dollars  you  may  earn,  is  not  in  the  money, 
but  in  the  training  that  making  it  in  an 
honest  way  will  give  you  along  these  lines. 
Therefore,  start  out  to  make  this  thousand 
dollars,  commencing  with  five,  ten,  fifty, 
one  hundred,  or  five  hundred  dollars 
earned  by  yourself,  by  your  own  unaided 
efforts,  digging  it  out  as  the  miner  digs 
the  gold  out  of  the  Klondyke.  There 
will  not  be  so  much  trouble  in  the  making 
of  it  as  in  the  saving,  in  avoiding  the 
spending  of  it  for  useless  things,  and  in 
putting  it  at  interest  as  fast  as  made;  or 
better  still,  investing  it  in  young  stock  to 
which  you  will  give  your  personal  care, 
and  thus  learn  to  feed  and  breed,  to  buy 
and  sell.  It  is  astonishing  how  fast  a 
young  man  on  the  farm  who  has  a  kind 
and  wise  father,  can  accumulate  money  in 
this  way,  and  with  it  the  qualities  of  mind 


84  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

and  heart  and  hand  that  make  the  real 
start  in  life,  no  matter  what  the  future 
profession  may  be.  When  these  qualities 
have  once  been  acquired,  the  amount  of 
money  that  has  been  accumulated  in  ac¬ 
quiring  them  is  really  a  secondary  matter. 
Any  farm  boy  who  has  been  well  born — 
by  well  born  I  mean  has  come  of  good, 
honest,  respectable  parents,  whether  they 
have  much  of  this  world’s  goods  or  little 
— who  has  fairly  good  health,  and  such 
education  as  a  common  school  can  give, 
can  acquire  them  if  he  will;  and  if  he  does 
not,  he  has  no  one  to  blame  but  himself. 
He  must,  however,  bend  every  energy  to 
its  requisition.  He  should  not  think  too 
much  about  the  girls  until  he  has  made  a 
start.  The  good  ones  of  them  will  keep.  He 
must  avoid  acquiring  expensive  habits, 
and  diligently  school  himself  to  hard  work, 
clear  thinking  and  honest  living. 

In  every  department  of  life,  whether 
manufacturing,  merchandising,  or  railroad¬ 
ing,  the  patrons  of  every  profession  are 
looking  for  boys  who  have  that  kind  of  a 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  START  IN  LIFE.  85 

start.  If  you  go  into  any  city,  large  or 
small,  in  this  broad  land,  you  will  find 
that  the  men  who  are  running  things  had 
that  kind  of  a  start,  and  got  it  themselves. 
Boys  who  have  that  kind  of  a  start  do  not 
need  to  do  much  advertising.  True  man¬ 
hood  has  a  ring  to  it  which  all  worthy 
men  recognize,  and  that  ring  can  not  be 
counterfeited  successfully.  There  is  no 
place  where  a  start  of  that  kind  can  be 
obtained  as  well  as  on  the  farm.  Having 
secured  the  money  part  of  the  start,  the 
farm  boy  can  spend  it  in  obtaining  an  ed¬ 
ucation  in  college,  or  in  the  particular 
branch  of  business,  or  the  particular  pro¬ 
fession  which  he  chooses  to  follow;  and 
barring  sickness,  accident,  or  an  unwise 
marriage,  nothing  can  prevent  him  from 
making  a  success  in  life.  He  may  not  be¬ 
come  a  millionaire.  A  few,  but  only  a 
few,  really  honest  men  do.  He  may  not 
rise  to  a  high  political  position,  and  yet 
he  may;  for  after  all,  honesty  is  the  best 
politics,  although  few  professional  politic¬ 
ians  seem  to  think  so;  but  he  will  secure 


86 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


the  confidence  of  all  who  have  to  do  with 
him,  all  this  world’s  goods  that  he  really 
needs,  and  more  too;  and  when  time 
pushes  him  out  of  the  world,  as  it  does 
all  of  us,  he  will  have  left  the  world  a 
good  deal  better  than  he  found  it,  which 
at  last  is  the  highest  measure  of  success. 

This  is  the  kind  of  a  man  I  wish  you  to 
become.  It  is  in  your  power,  when  you 
start  out  resolutely,  to  make  this  start,  or 
live  to  regret  in  after  years  that  you  did 
not  take  the  advice  of  your 

Uncle  Henry. 


CHAPTER  X. 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  HABITS. 

My  Dear  Boy: 

When  you  and  I  were  quite  small  we 
had  a  great  difficulty  in  learning  to  walk. 
We  first  crept,  then  with  great  effort  we 
learned  to  stand  alone  by  a  chair,  then  to 
take  a  single  step,  then  two  or  three  in 
succession.  Our  mothers  encouraged  us 
to  make  longer  ventures,  and  by  and  by 
we  learned  to  walk  across  the  floor,  fall¬ 
ing  down,  perhaps,  two  or  three  times; 
and  when  we  succeeded  we  felt  that  it  was 
the  proudest  day  of  our  lives.  Every  step 
at  the  beginning  required  a  distinct  effort 
of  the  will,  of  which  we  were  then  con¬ 
scious,  but  it  was  not  long  until  we  walked 
without  conscious  thought  or  movement. 
In  other  words,  it  walked  itself.  We  had 
acquired  the  habit  of  walking. 


88 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


It  took  us  a  long  time  and  much  con¬ 
scious  effort  to  learn  to  talk.  First,  we 
managed  the  easy  words  of  one  or  two 
syllables,  then  of  three,  and  by  and  by, 
with  much  toil  and  pains,  we  managed  the 
big  words,  and  the  w’s,  v’s  and  the  h’s. 
We  were  quite  proud  of  ourselves,  and 
our  parents  were  prouder  still  of  us,  when 
we  learned  to  talk,  or  rather,  when  it 
learned  to  talk  itself;  and  the  only  trouble 
they  had  for  some  years  afterwards  was 
that  we  talked  entirely  too  much.  We 
had  formed  the  habit  of  talking. 

It  took  you  and  me  a  long  time  to  learn 
to  read.  We  had  first  to  learn  the  name 
of  one  letter,  and  then  of  another,  with 
their  appropriate  sounds,  and  then  com¬ 
bine  the  letters  and  sounds,  so  that  we  did 
well  when  we  could  make  out  one  word 
at  a  time.  We  formed  the  habit  of  doing 
this,  and  now  we  can  read  faster  than  we 
can  make  the  sounds.  Some  people  have 
learned,  not  merely  to  take  in  a  word  at  a 
time,  but  a  sentence;  and  can  skim  over 
the  pages  of  a  book,  and  get  the  sense  of 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  HABITS.  89 

it,  in  a  way  that  those  who  have  not 
learned  to  do  so,  can  scarcely  understand. 
At  least,  I  can  not.  They  have  formed 
the  habit. 

When  you  were  in  my  office  last,  you 
noticed  how  very  rapidly  the  stenographer 
handled  the  keys  of  the  machine.  It 
would  be  slow  work  for  you  and  me,  but 
if  we  had  formed  the  habit  it  would  do 
itself.  It  was  slow  work  for  the  stenog¬ 
rapher  to  learn  to  take  down  talk  in  short¬ 
hand,  but  it  became  so  easy  for  a  man  I 
once  employed,  that  it  required  no  thought 
at  all;  and  on  a  hot  day  he  would  go  to 
sleep  taking  it  down,  and  I  used  to  have 
waken  him.  He  had  formed  the  habit. 

For  several  months  of  my  life  I  had  to 
take  down  speeches  and  lectures  in  long- 
hand,  and  I  got  into  the  habit  of  leaving 
out  nearly  all  the  vowels  in  writing,  and 
part  of  the  consonants.  Since  then  I  have 
written  a  hand  that  few  can  read.  I  get 
to  thinking,  and  the  pen  wiggles — that  is 
all;  and  often  I  cannot  read  it  myself,  un¬ 
less  I  know  what  I  am  writing  about — a 
very  bad  habit. 


go 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


I  have  given  you  these  illustrations  of 
the  power  and  force  of  habit  for  a  distinct 
purpose.  You  and  I  are  simply  bundles 
of  habits.  Every  time  we  do  anything 
it  becomes  easier  to  do  it  in  the  future, 
until  by  and  by  the  doing  of  it  becomes 
unconscious,  automatic — it  does  itself.  It 
is,  therefore,  of  the  utmost  importance 
that  we  form  correct  habits  in  doing,  in 
thinking,  in  living.  If  we  learn  to  do  a 
thing  badly  and  form  the  habit,  we  will  in 
all  probability  do  it  badly  all  our  days.  If 
we  form  the  habit  of  doing  things  wrong, 
and  if  we  form  the  habit  of  doing  bad 
things,  we  will  in  time  become  bad  men; 
for  badness  and  goodness  are,  to  a  certain 
extent,  at  least,  matters  of  habit. 

When  your  Uncle  Henry  was  a  boy,  he 
was  very  anxious  to  get  over  a  great  deal  of 
work.  For  instance,  he  was  anxious  to  be 
the  fastest  corn  husker  and  the  fastest  grain 
binder  in  the  neighborhood.  Unfortun¬ 
ately,  he  formed  the  habit  of  binding 
sheaves  loosely,  and  failed  to  acquire  the 
habit  of  getting  all  the  silk  and  husks  off 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  HABITS.  9I 

the  corn.  The  mice  had  a  picnic  in  the 
corn  that  he  husked.  A  loose  sheaf  when 
hauled  in,  or  out  at  threshing  time,  was 
instantly  recognized  as  one  of  “Henry’s 
sheaves.”  I  tried  hard  to  correct  this 
habit  in  after  years,  but  never  succeeded. 
I  could  bind  tightly  enough  as  long  as  I 
kept  thinking  about  it;  but  the  moment  I 
began  thinking  about  something  else,  and 
that  was  about  all  the  time,  the  sheaf 
bound  itself  loose. 

You  will  avoid  a  great  deal  of  trouble 
in  after  life  if  you  will  acquire  the  habit 
of  doing  whatever  you  do,  well.  It  takes 
no  longer  to  acquire  the  habit  of  doing  it 
right  than  wrong,  and  when  a  habit  is  once 
formed,  it  stays  formed;  and  the  longer 
you  practice  it,  the  more  firmly  the  habit 
becomes  fixed.  It  is  just  as  easy  to  curry 
the  horse  well,  when  you  get  in  the  habit 
of  it,  as  it  is  to  give  him  a  “lick  and  a 
promise.”  It  is  just  as  easy  to  milk  the 
cow  clean,  and  with  neatness  and  dispatch, 
as  it  is  to  milk  her  otherwise;  and  the 
habit  once  formed  of  doing  things  right, 


92 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


will  stay  with  you  as  a  perpetual  heritage 
and  blessing.  The  habit  of  doing  things 
right  can  be  formed  by  the  conscious  do¬ 
ing  of  them  in  the  first  place,  and  every 
subsequent  repetition  of  the  act  fixes  and 
confirms  the  habit  until  it  becomes  the 
permanent  habit  of  life.  The  man  who 
learns  to  do  the  work  on  the  farm  right, 
will  be  very  likely  to  do  all  his  work  right, 
for  the  reason  that  it  becomes  second 
nature. 

I  need  not  say  to  you  that  you  are  very 
foolish  if  you  acquire  what  are  ordinarily 
called  “bad  habits,”  which  are  usually  re¬ 
garded  as  habits  of  doing  wrong  or  use¬ 
less  things,  and  not  the  habit  of  doing 
right  and  useful  things  in  the  wrong  way. 
A  boy  is  foolish  to  acquire  habits  which 
involve  expense  or  injury  to  his  health,  or 
waste  his  time  and  money.  There  are 
weights  enough  to  be  borne  in  life  with¬ 
out  taking  on  extra  loads  and  binding 
them  to  our  backs  by  the  silken,  yet  un 
breakable,  cords  of  habit. 

Mental  and  moral  habits  are  even  more 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  HABITS. 


93 


important  than  physical.  You  will  be 
greatly  helped  in  forming  right  moral 
habits,  and  continuing  therein,  if  your 
father  and  mother  have  in  your  earliest 
childhood  thoroughly  instructed  you  in 
the  first  principles  of  right  and  wrong; 
have  taught  you  to  do  right  because  it  is 
eternally  right,  and  taught  you  to  avoid 
doing  wrong  because  it  is  everlastingly 
wrong;  and  that  while  there  may  be  pal¬ 
liation  of  the  guilt  of  wrong  doing,  there 
can  never,  under  any  circumstances,  be  a 
good  excuse  for  it.  If  you  are  fortunate 
enough  to  have  this  kind  of  early  teach¬ 
ing,  and  take  to  it,  it  will  be  comparatively 
easy  to  form  right  mental  habits. 

You  will  be  much  more  likely  to  adopt 
these  elementary  principles  of  righteous¬ 
ness  if  you  have  righteous  blood  behind 
you,  and  unlikely  if  you  have  bad  blood 
coursing  in  your  veins.  For,  though  some 
affect  not  to  believe  it,  it  is  a  truth  as  old 
as  Moses,  and  in  fact,  very  much  older, 
that  the  iniquities  of  the  fathers  (and 
mothers,  too,)  are  visited  upon  the  chil- 


94 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


dren  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation  of 
them  that  hate  the  Lord,  and  mercy 
shown  to  a  thousand  generations  of  them 
that  love  Him  and  keep  His  command¬ 
ments. 

Some  good  people  do  not  like  this  text 
because  they  do  not  understand  it.  It  is 
to  me  of  great  interest  to  know  that  in 
three  or  four  generations  inherited  evil 
may  be  overcome  by  the  right  kind  of 
training,  and  that  when  overcome,  a  right¬ 
eous  character  may  be  perpetuated  under 
the  right  kind  of  training  for  an  indefinite 
period. 

You  will  readily  understand,  therefore, 
that  the  formation  of  mental  and  moral 
habits  is  about  the  most  important  thing 
in  your  life.  For  example,  you  may  form 
the  habit  of  seeing  things  clearly  and  dis¬ 
tinctly,  and  stating  them  truthfully;  or 
you  may  form  the  habit  of  half  seeing, 
and  stating  them  loosely.  Do  you  know 
that  as  a  matter  of  fact  there  are  compar¬ 
atively  few  persons  that  can  tell  the  truth, 
that  is,  state  things  precisely  as  they  are? 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  HABITS.  95 

They  are  not  conscious  liars,  not  liars  at 
all  in  the  obnoxious  sense,  but  neverthe¬ 
less  we  cannot  depend  upon  what  they 
say,  because  we  know  they  are  not  in  the 
habit  of  seeing  things  as  they  are,  or  of 
stating  in  exact  language  what  they  do 
see.  There  is  no  habit  of  more  value  to  a 
young  man,  whether  on  the  farm  or  off 
it,  than  to  be  able  to  discern  truth,  fact, 
reality,  and  to  state  it  as  he  sees  it,  with¬ 
out  exaggeration  or  being  influenced  by 
his  hopes,  his  fears,  his  dislikes,  or  his 
prejudices.  The  farm  boy  has  a  better 
chance  to  practice  in  this  line  than  any 
other  class  of  boys.  He  should  train  him¬ 
self  to  know  by  observation  the  weight 
of  the  steer  or  calf,  the  size  of  the  field, 
the  distance  from  one  point  to  another, 
the  yield  per  acre  of  the  crops  grown,  and 
the  color  and  form  of  every  particular 
animal  on  the  farm.  The  shepherd,  by 
his  close  powers  of  observation,  can  tell 
each  particular  sheep  if  there  are  five  hun¬ 
dred  in  the  flock,  and  detect  at  a  glance 
over  the  flock  which  one  is  missing.  The 


g6  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

farm  boy  can  do  the  same  if  he  but  will. 

Next  to  the  habit  of  seeing  things  as 
they  are,  is  stating  them,  or  telling  the 
truth,  a  habit  that  can  be  acquired  only 
by  careful  and  long  continued  practice, 
and  which,  when  once  acquired,  will  do 
more  to  win  the  confidence  of  men  than 
almost  any  other  one  trait  of  character. 

Still  more  important,  if  anything,  is  the 
cultivation  of  the  habit  of  right-doing.  It 
is  almost  as  easy  to  do  right  as  wrong,  if 
one  but  acquires  the  habit  of  it.  Habits 
of  right-feeling  precede  habits  of  right 
doing.  The  thoroughly  good  man  does 
right  without  thinking  about  it,  or  talking 
about  it,  or  taking  any  credit  whatever 
for  it  to  himself,  because  he  has  formed 
the  habit  of  it.  It  becomes  part  of  his 
nature.  It  would  hurt  him  to  do  anything 
else,  because  it  is  the  breaking  up  of  the 
habits  of  his  life,  a  sort  of  rupture  of  the 
fibers  of  his  being. 

If  you  will  think  a  moment,  you  will 
see  that  it  would  not  be  possible  for  this 
worLd  to  run  anyways  smoothly  in  any 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  HABITS.  97 


other  way  than  by  making  men  bundles  of 
habits,  thus  giving  permanency  to  charac¬ 
ter.  You  know  that  your  father  will  bev 
about  the  same  sort  of  a  man  to-morrow, 
next  week,  or  next  year,  that  he  was  yester¬ 
day,  or  last  week,  or  last  year;  that  there 
will  be  little  or  no  change  in  his  walk,  in 
his  talking,  in  his  modes  of  thinking,  and 
manner  of  meeting  whatever  problems 
come  up  on  the  farm.  He  will  be  out  of 
humor  with  the  same  sort  of  things,  and 
be  pleased  with  the  same  sort.  He  will 
like  the  same  sort  of  people  he  has  liked 
for  years,  and  will  dislike  the  same  sort. 
It  will  be  the  same  with  your  mother,  and 
with  all  your  neighbors.  Business  men, 
politicians,  preachers  and  teachers,  all 
who  have  to  do  with  men,  count  on  this 
general  permanency  of  character,  the  re¬ 
sult  of  fixed  habits,  based  on  fixed  princi¬ 
ples.  If  it  were  otherwise,  it  would  be 
impossible  to  do  business,  or  to  get  along 
at  all  comfortably  with  each  other;  and 
society,  politics,  church  affairs,  and  every¬ 
thing  else  would  be  in  total  confusion. 


98  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOV. 

Getting  acquainted  with  men  is  simply 
taking  stock  of  their  habits,  and  we  are 
greatly  surprised  when  some  friend  devel¬ 
ops  a  trait  of  character  which  we  never 
saw  before,  because  we  had  never  become 
acquainted  with  that  particular  habit  in 
the  bundle.  It  is,  therefore,  of  the  utmost 
importance  that  you  form  the  right  sort 
habits,  and  do  it  when  you  can.  The 
older  you  become,  the  harder  it  will  be  to 
form  good  habits  and  to  break  up  bad 
habits. 

You  are  yet  young.  You  can  form 
the  habit  of  doing  that  which  your  own 
conscience  tells  you  is  the  right  thing  to 
do;  that  for  which  there  is  no  necessity 
of  making  any  excuse;  that  of  which  your 
mother  and  father  approve,  and  of  which 
your  own  sense  of  right  approves,  and  of 
which  the  Ruler  of  this  world  approves. 
It  is  not  as  easy  to  do  this  as  to  do  the 
other  thing,  for  there  is  more  or  less 
weakness  and  inherent  wickedness  in  the 
best  of  men;  but  the  constant  doing  of  it 
will  so  fix  the  habit  that  when  you  go  out 


THE  FARM  BOY  AND  HIS  HABITS. 


99 


to  take  your  place  in  the  world,  you  will 
never  seriously  think  of  doing  anything 
else,  nor  will  the  world  expect  anything 
else  of  you.  It  is  in  this  way  that  men 
become  strong  and  form  characters  on 
which  the  weak  will  lean  for  guidance 
and  direction.  If  you  are  in  doubt  about 
the  propriety  of  doing  any  thing,  do  not 
do  it.  “He  that  doubteth  is  damned;” 
that  is,  condemned,  or  reproved,  by  his 
own  sense  of  right  or  conscience. 

You  will  see,  my  dear  boy,  that  I  have 
not  given  you  a  lecture,  nor  preached  a 
sermon,  but  simply  pointed  out  certain 
facts  that  you  should  know.  It  is  not  a 
question  as  to  whether  you  will  form 
habits  or  not.  Form  habits  you  will;  you 
can  not  help  that.  It  is  simply  a  question 
whether  you  will  form  right  habits  or 
wrong  ones;  which  means,  whether  you 
will  be  a  man  that  “will  do  to  tie  to,”  or 
not;  whether,  in  short,  this  life,  the  only 
one  you  have  to  live  in  this  world,  is  to  be 
a  success  or  failure. 


Uncle  Henry. 


CHAPTER  XI. 


THE  FARM  BOY  FROM  HOME. 

My  Dear  Boy: 

I  do  not  wonder  that  you  sometimes 
become  restless  and  want  to  get  away 
from  the  farm  for  a  day  or  two.  I,  too, 
felt  that  way.  From  the  beginning  of 
spring  wheat  sowing  to  the  end  of  corn 
husking,  is  a  long  time  for  a  boy  to  work 
hard,  day  and  night,  with  no  vacation  ex¬ 
cept  the  Fourth  of  July. 

Time  flies  after  a  man  has  passed  fifty, 
but  it  limps  along  very  slowly  with  a  boy 
under  twenty.  Work  on  the  farm,  al¬ 
though  much  easier  than  it  was  when  I 
was  a  boy,  is  not  after  all  the  very  easiest 
kind  of  work,  and  if  continued  right  along 
without  interruption,  becomes  very  mo¬ 
notonous.  The  hours  of  work  are  long 
in  the  summer,  the  nights  short.  We  get 


THE  FARM  BOY  FROM  HOME. 


tot 


tired  looking  day  after  day,  and  month 
after  month  at  the  same  horizon,  which 
seems  to  close  down  on  us  and  shut  us  in 
all  around,  knowing  all  the  while  that 
there  is  a  great  world  beyond,  throbbing 
and  palpitating  with  human  hopes  and 
ambitions.  We  long  to  see  something  of 
it  and  share  in  its  abundant  life.  At  least 
I  did.  I  know  you  do. 

Valuable  as  is  the  drill  of  farm  work  in 
forming  habits  of  steady,  persistent  indus¬ 
try,  the  boy  needs  once  in  a  while  to  get 
away  from  home,  to  see  something  of  what 
the  papers  tell  about,  and  to  measure  him¬ 
self  with  other  boys,  and  be  measured  by 
them.  If  a  bright  boy,  he  is  apt,  if  kept 
always  at  home,  to  become  a  conceited 
fellow  with  vast  conceptions  of  his  abili¬ 
ties  in  one  direction  or  another,  and,  if  he 
is  to  be  of  any  account  in  the  world,  needs 
to  have  this  conceit  completely  knocked 
out  of  him.  The  farm  boy  who  is  first  in 
the  common  school  is  very  likely  to  get 
what,  in  common  parlance,  we  expressive¬ 
ly  term  “the  big  head,”  and  should  have 


1 02 


Letters  to  the  farm  boy. 


a  chance  to  meet  some  one  who  has  for¬ 
gotten  more  than  he  ever  knew.  The 
neighborhood  bully  should  be  encouraged 
to  meet  some  one  who  will  take  the  swag¬ 
ger  and  insolence  out  of  him  with  one 
swift  blow,  coming  like  a  clap  of  thunder 
out  of  a  clear  sky.  The  boy  who  has 
fallen  into  careless  habits  of  speech  or  be¬ 
havior  should  have  a  chance  to  see  how 
well  bred  boys  conduct  themselves,  while 
the  modest  and  diffident  boy  should  have 
a  chance  to  learn  that  an  honest  heart  and 
a  clear  head  with  country  manners  are 
like  gold — current  the  world  over  at  full 
weight,  with  or  without  polish. 

The  behavior  of  the  farm  boy  away 
from  home  furnishes  an  excellent  means 
of  judging  what  sort  of  a  boy  he  is,  what 
sort  of  folks  his  parents  are,  and  in  what 
kind  of  a  neighborhood  he  was  brought 
up,  or  at  least,  the  kind  of  associates  he 
has.  When  I  see  a  number  of  farm  boys 
going  home  from  the  state  fair,  or  any 
other  public  gathering,  noisy,  profane, 
and  evidently  aiming  to  attract  public 


THE  FARM  BOY  FROM  HOME. 


103 


attention,  I  am  not  surprised  if  I  notice  a 
bottle  of  liquor  circulating  among  them, 
and  I  infer  that  they  have  seen  but  little 
of  the  world,  and  that  little  not  by  any 
means  the  best  part  of  it.  I  expect,  of 
course,  that  when  a  farm  boy  goes  away 
from  home  he  will  be  somewhat  like 
a  colt  that  has  been  kept  in  the  stable 
and  needs  exercise.  I  expect  him  to  have 
a  good  time  and  to  enjoy  it;  but  I  also 
know  that,  now  that  he  is  off  his  guard,  I 
can  form  a  good  deal  better  judgment  of 
what  he  is,  and  what  he  is  likely  to  be, 
than  if  I  met  him  on  the  farm,  and  under 
his  parents’  eye.  I  like  the  boy  that  likes 
fun.  I  like  it  myself,  and  better  in  my 
old  days  than  when  I  was  young;  but 
there  is  no  real  fun  in  any  behavior  that  is 
loud;  that  has  neither  wit  nor  humor  in  it, 
but  more  or  less  of  obscenity  or  profanity. 
I  like  to  see  farm  boys,  when  away  from 
home,  take  an  interest  in  base  ball  and 
football,  and  take  part  in  these  games,  if 
they  are  stout  enough  to  do  it  without 
danger.  Such  fun  is  natural,  and  as 


104 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


healthy  as  for  colts  to  run,  or  for  lambs 
to  play.  A  boy  that  is  fair  in  games  will 
likely  be  fair  in  business;  and  conversely. 
I  have  always  suspected  the  genuineness 
of  the  Christianity  of  a  certain  preacher 
who  once  tried  to  cheat  me  in  playing 
croquet.  The  boy,  who,  when  away  from 
home,  wants  to  see  the  seamy  side  of  the 
city,  or  to  “paint  the  town  red/’  or  to 
have  what  he  calls  “a  high  old  time,” 
serves  notice  on  all  men  that  he  has  poor 
stuff  in  him,  and  is  likely  to  make  a  poor 

use  of  it. 

> 

Other  farm  boys  when  away  from  home 
reveal  the  fact  that  they  are  insufferably 
vain  and  conceited,  and  need  to  be  taken 
down  severely  a  peg  or  two.  These  are 
not  bad  boys.  They  simply  overestimate 
their  good  looks,  or  their  smartness,  or, 
perhaps,  their  father’s  wealth  or  social 
position.  Living  in  the  narrow  circle  of 
the  neighborhood,  they  get  an  enormous¬ 
ly  exaggerated  idea  of  their  own  impor¬ 
tance,  and  make  themselves  the  laughing 
stock  of  sensible  people.  If  they  have 


THE  FARM  BOY  FROM  HOME.  »C>5 

sense  enough  to  see  this  and  get  down 
from  their  pedestal,  they  will  come  out 
all  right;  and  it  is  often  an  excellent  thing 
for  a  boy  to  get  away  from  home  and  be 
laughed  at  and  ridiculed,  and  made  to  feel 
cheap  and  mean.  The  medicine  is  hard 
to  take,  but  it  is  good  for  you.  You  will 
not  get  it  unless  you  need  it.  The  next 
time  you  get  away  you  will  not  dress  nor 
act  so  as  to  attract  attention.  You  will 
slip  along  quietly  like  the  rest  of  us  com¬ 
mon  folks,  and  will,  as  a  result,  get  the 
good  will  of  the  plain,  common  sense  sort 
of  people  who  are  really  the  only  sort  that 
can  be  of  any  help  to  you.  Let  me  give 
you  a  hint:  Whether  away  from  home  or 
at  home,  dress  and  act  so  that  you  will 
attract  as  little  notice  as  possible.  Leave 
off  that  glaring  necktie,  and  the  hat  that 
is  either  too  broad  or  too  narrow  in  the 
rim.  Do  not  push  yourself  into  public 
notice,  and  do  not  hide  away.  Face  the 
world  boldly  and  modestly,  do  not  force 
your  own  opinions  upon  people,  and  do 
not  hesitate  to  express  them  modestly, 


1 06 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


but  firmly,  when  called  upon,  and  the  out¬ 
side  world  will  henceforth  consider  you  a 
boy  of  good  sense,  and  the  making  of  a 
strong  man. 

A  good  many  farm  boys  are  entirely 
too  modest  and  diffident  when  away  from 
home,  and  particularly  so  if  they  are 
thrown  among  noted  men,  or  men  and 
women  who  have  seen  much  of  the  world. 
They  then  become  painfully  self-con¬ 
scious.  Their  dress  does  not  seem  to  fit 
as  they  thought  it  did  when  they  left 
home,  They  lose  their  natural  man¬ 
ner  and  become  stiff  and  awkward,  es¬ 
pecially  when  in  the  society  of  refined 
and  cultivated  ladies.  They  are  at  a  loss 
as  to  what  to  do  with  their  hands  and  feet. 
This  is  a  very  painful  experience.  Do 
not  fret  because  you  step  high  while  other 
men  seem  to  glide  along.  You  are  accus¬ 
tomed  to  walking  over  rough  surfaces; 
they  over  carpets.  Do  not  feel  badly  be¬ 
cause  you  speak  loudly.  You  have  to 
speak  loudly  out  of  doors  on  the  farm; 
they  speak  to  people  in  the  house.  The 


The  farm  boy  from  home.  107 

sensible  man  understands  all  this  and 
thinks  none  the  less  of  the  boy  for  acting 
naturally  and  farm  like. 

Do  you  know  that  business  men  of  all 
sorts  are  constantly  looking  out  for  just 
this  sort  of  boys?  They  always  suspect 
the  farm  boy,  who,  when  away  from  home, 
tries  to  ape  the  manners  of  the  town  boy, 
or  who  shows  traces  of  foppery.  In  the 
eyes  of  sensible  men  in  the  city,  country 
manners  are  always  at  a  premium.  You 
may  not  know,  but  I  do,  that  successful 
men  everywhere  like  well  bred,  modest 
boys,  and  will  always  encourage  and  push 
them  to  the  front  as  far  and  as  fast  at  it  * 
is  safe.  Most  of  them  were  farm  boys 
themselves,  remember  their  own  early 
trials,  and  take  genuine  pleasure  in  giving 
a  helping  hand  to  these  young  fellows 
who  come  to  the  city  to  push  their  for¬ 
tunes,  or  who  push  them  on  the  farm. 

I  can  point  out  middle-aged  bankers 
who  will  loan  money  to  a  boy,  when,  if 
the  father  came,  they  would  have  no 
money  to  lend.  They  see  clear  through 


108  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

country  manners  to  the  real  stuff  under¬ 
neath,  and  take  pleasure  in  helping  the 
farm  boy  with  a  clean  life,  resolute  will, 
and  unstained  honor.  There  is  one  man 
now  gone  over  to  the  other  world,  whose 
memory  I  revere.  He  invited  me  with 
other  boys,  to  take  tea  and  spend  the 
evening.  His  wife  was  city  bred,  stylish, 
and  vain.  I  was  fresh  from  the  farm, 
awkward,  and  very  plainly  dressed.  She 
lectured  me  on  my  lack  of  taste  in  dress 
and  refinement  in  manner.  He  overheard 
it,  and  said:  “Henry,  you  will  find  it  much 
easier  to  put  her  advice  in  practice  if  you 
stick  closely  to  your  studies,  get  the  foun¬ 
dation  first,  and  be  thorough  in  all  your  work. 
Your  dress  and  manners  then  will  come 
all  right.  Make  yourself  worth  polishing, 
and  the  polish  will  come  as  you  rub  up 
against  men.” 

While  self-conceit  and  self-assertion 
should  be  repressed  in  the  farm  boy,  he 
should  at  the  same  time  know  the  full 
value  of  his  powers  and  learn  to  rely  on 
them.  Getting  away  from  home  and  min- 


THE  FARM  BOY  FROM  HOME. 


109 


gling  with  the  very  best  sort  of  people 
will  teach  you  how  to  take  your  measure. 
Low  bred  fellows,  physical  and  intellect¬ 
ual  bullies,  and  small  souls  who  are  con¬ 
stantly  in  fear  lest  some  one  surpasses 
them,  will  try  to  intimidate  you  by  ridi¬ 
culing,  by  browbeating  or  bulldozing  you; 
but  when  you  strike  a  true  man  he  will  be 
your  friend.  It  will  do  you  no  good  to 
associate  with  snobs  and  upstarts.  If  you 
get  a  good,  honest,  manly  and  intelligent 
face  on  you,  which  you  can  get  only  by 
being  an  honest,  manly  and  thoughtful 
farm  boy,  you  do  not  need  any  certificate 
of  character  or  letter  of  recommendation 
from  anybody.  You  will  find  that  the 
very  highest  people  in  the  whole  land  are 
the  most  easily  approached,  and  the  most 
ready  and  willing  to  help  a  modest,  thor¬ 
oughly  upright  and  self-reliant  farm  boy. 
I  have  the  honor  to  be  personally  ac¬ 
quainted  with  many  of  the  great  men  of 
the  nation,  and  I  find  that  the  greater  the 
man,  the  easier  it  is  to  approach  him.  It 
was  much  easier  to  reach  General  Grant 


IIO  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

during  the  war  than  the  petty  officers  who 
waited  on  him.  President  McKinley  is  a 
much  more  approachable  man  than  many 
of  the  little  popinjays  who  want  to  be 
county  officers,  or  to  be  elected  to  the  leg- 
lature.  You  would  feel  much  easier  in 
talking  with  the  members  of  his  cabinet 
than  with  many  of  the  little  snipes  who 
hold  clerkships  in  the  various  departments. 

Get  away  from  home  if  you  can,  and 
when  away  mix  with  the  very  best  people 
within  your  reach.  Keep  out  of  the  noisy, 
boisterous  crowd.  Let  the  prigs  admire 
their  own  excellencies.  Do  not  hesitate 
to  mix  with  the  best  men  much  older  than 
yourself.  You  need  never  be  afraid  or  ill 
at  ease  with  a  really  great  man.  If  you 
are  of  the  right  sort  to  begin  with,  they 
will  be  glad  to  talk  with  you.  If  the  best 
men  give  you  the  cold  shoulder,  there 
must  be  something  wrong  with  you.  What 
is  it? 


Uncle  Henry. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


ABOUT  THE  HARDUP  FAMILY. 

My  Dear  Boy: 

I  fear  I  have  given  you  more  good  ad¬ 
vice  in  previous  letters  than  you  will  take. 
I  suspect  you  have  not  read  all  of  them 
very  carefully.  You  may  have  the  idea 
that  it  is  natural  and  right  for  a  boy  to 
have  his  fun,  and  perhaps  sow  a  little  wild 
oats,  and  have  a  good  time  generally  until 
he  is  married,  and  then  will  be  the  time  to 
settle  down.  Your  father  and  mother 
have  read  these  letters,  and  perhaps  urged 
you  to  read  them  carefully.  They  may, 
indeed,  have  urged  you  a  little  more  than 
was  prudent.  I  find  nothing  does  a  boy 
good  unless  he  relishes  it;  and  unless  you 
have  a  taste  for  good  advice,  and  take  to 
it  naturally,  it  will,  very  likely,  be  wasted. 
For  this  reason  I  propose  hereafter  to 


1 1 2 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


give  you  illustrations  rather  than  advice, 
and  will  tell  you  something  about  farm 
boys  who  have  failed,  and  failed  for  the 
reason  that  they  have  not  taken  advice 
similar  to  that  which  I  have  given  you. 

When  a  man  has  lived  over  sixty  years, 
and  been  a  close  observer  of  farm  boys, 
mingling  with  them  for  nearly  fifty  of 
these  years,  he  acquires  a  very  large  ac¬ 
quaintance,  and  can  group  his  acquain¬ 
tances  into  a  great  many  large  classes. 
I  propose  to  tell  you  this  time  about 
a  very  large  and  respectable  class  of  farm 
boys  under  the  general  name  of  Hardups. 

The  Hardups  are  a  very  old  family, 
their  pedigree  tracing  back  through  the 
revolutionary  period,  and  quite  a  number 
of  them  came  over  in  the  Mayflower.  In 
my  trips  abroad  I  find  that  they  are  a 
large  family  on  the  other  side,  and  in 
looking  up  their  pedigree,  I  have  found 
that  they  antedate  the  oldest  names  in  the 
English  peerage,  and  in  fact  trace  to  that 
period  “of  which  the  memory  of  man  run¬ 
neth  not  back  to  the  contrary.” 


ABOUT  THE  HARDUP  FAMILY.  1 1  3 

A  large  number  of  them  came  West  be¬ 
fore  and  after  I  did.  I  have  kept  my  eye 
on  a  few,  and  have  had  many  pleasant 
and  profitable  talks  with  them.  Many  of 
them  are  eminently  respectable  people, 
and  some  of  them  are  among  my  warmest 
personal  friends,  of  whom  I  may  speak 
freely,  provided  I  don’t  tell  where  they 
live. 

For  example,  there  is  my  friend,  Ben 
Hardup,  as  good  a  fellow  as  ever  lived, 
true  to  his  friends,  open  hearted,  gener¬ 
ous,  loyal  to  his  party,  devoted  to  his 
church,  and  true  to  his  name,  Hardup.  I 
knew  his  father  before  him,  his  brothers 
and  sisters,  his  cousins  and  his  aunts,  and 
they  were  all  of  a  piece — “the  easy-going 
Hardups,”  we  used  to  call  them.  They 
were  good  livers.  I  shall  never  forget  a 
remark  that  Ben’s  father  made  to  me  one 
time  at  supper,  when  I  asked  him  how  it 
was  that  he  was  able  to  live  so  much  bet¬ 
ter  than  many  of  his  neighbors.  He  was 
carving  a  fat  tnrkey  at  the  time,  and  he 
stopped,  looked  at  me  with  mock  severity, 


U4 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


and  said,  “Henry,  I  want  you  to  under¬ 
stand  that  neither  I  nor  any  of  my  boys, 
will  ever  die  in  debt  to  his  stomach.” 
That  particular  branch  of  the  family,  at 
least,  never  did,  wherever  I  have  known 
them. 

I  warned  Ben  when  he  came  West  not 
to  settle  in  the  timber,  as  I  have  warned 
you  not  to  do  certain  things.  He  did  the 
precise  thing  which  I  warned  him  not  to 
do.  I  hope  you  will  not  follow  his  exam¬ 
ple.  It  was  a  very  natural  mistake  that 

Ben  made.  He  said  to  himself,  as  he  told 

> 

me  the  other  day  when  I  spent  a  pleasant 
evening  with  him,  that  the  way  he  looked 
at  it  was  this;  that  the  prairie  lands  of 
this  great  state  would  never  be  settled  up. 
He  told  me  that  just  as  he  left  the  East  he 
dreamed  that,  in  moving  West,  when  he 
came  to  the  top  of  a  hill,  the  left  back 
wheel  of  his  wagon  came  off,  and  that  be¬ 
fore  him  there  lay  a  beautiful  stream  with 
timber  growing  along  its  banks,  a  log 
cabin  and  a  fertile  prairie  for  miles  on 
eaeh  side.  The  dream  was  fulfilled  when 


ABOUT  THE  HARDUP  FAMILY.  1 1  5 

he  actually  began  his  journey,  and  there 
lay  the  landscape  he  had  seen  in  his  vis¬ 
ion;  and  when  he  had  repaired  his  wagon 
he  called  on  the  owner  of  the  cabin  and 
and  bought  that  quarter. 

He  was  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
from  a  railroad.  He  said  to  himself: 
“H  ere  is  timber,  shelter,  good  land  and 
pasture  that  would  have  made  Jacob  weep 

_  V 

if  Esau  had  squatted  on  it.  What  more 
do  I  want?”  In  less  than  five  years  from 
that  time  the  railroad  came,  and  with  it 
settlers  jumping  over  each  other  to  enter 
land,  and  he  was  shut  up  to  his  timber 
land,  which  he  has  been  grubbing  out  ev  r 
since.  “I  do  not  mind,”  said  he,  “the  hard 
work  it  has  cost  me  and  my  boys  to  pi  - 
pare  fields,  when,  had  I  gone  out  a  few 
miles,  I  could  have  had  much  better 
lands  at  government  price,  in  which  I 
could  have  plowed  the  length  and  breadth 
of  a  quarter  without  striking  a  stone  or  a 
stump;  but  there  are  a  lot  of  folks  settled 
along  this  timber,  with  some  of  whom  I 
do  not  care  to  have  my  boys  and  girls  as- 


Il6  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

sociate,  and  I  must  get  out  of  this  as  soon 
as  possible  if  I  am  to  have  a  happy  and 
peaceful  old  age/’ 

His  brother  Sam  went  out  on  the  prairie 
and  Ben  furnished  him  firewood  free  for 
five  years.  He  built  a  temporary  house, 
and  prairie  stable,  broke  up  his  land  by 
piecemeal,  and  finally  got  it  all  under  cul¬ 
tivation,  and  along  early  in  the  sixties  had 
the  misfortune  to  have  a  great  wheat  crop 
and  sell  it  at  a  long  price.  This  awak¬ 
ened  his  dormant  ambition.  He  thought 
he  must  have  more  land,  and  bought  an 
adjacent  quarter,  giving  a  mortgage  on 
both.  The  next  year  the  wheat  crop 
failed  and  the  price  went  down.  Bob 
Cheatem,  the  son  of  a  broker  of  the  firm 
of  Ketchem  &  Cheatem,  whose  acquain¬ 
tance  Sam  made  in  coming  West,  and  who 
had  a  large  flock  of  diseased  sheep  on  his 
hands,  taken  in  on  a  mortgage,  called  to 
revive  old  acquaintance  with  him,  and  in¬ 
cidentally  persuaded  him  to  go  into  sheep. 
Sam  knew  nothing  about  sheep,  but 
yielded  to  Bob’s  persuasive  eloquence. 


ABOUT  THE  HARDUP  FAMILY. 


ii  7 


which  he  describes  as  follows:  “You  see, 
Sam,  wool  is  worth  a  dollar  a  pound,  and 
every  ewe  will  shear  eight  pounds  each 
year,  and  give  you  two  good  lambs.  The 
lambs  are  worth  five  dollars  apiece,  and 
there  is  eighteen  dollars  for  keeping  one 
sheep  a  year,  and  you  can  keep  six  of 
them  on  an  acre.”  Sam  bought  the  sheep 
and  millions  of  scab  mites  with  them,  and 
foot  rot  to  boot;  and  in  less  than  a  year 
he  sold  all  that  remained  of  his  flock  for 
a  dollar  a  head,  and  was  glad  to  get  rid  of 
them  at  that.  Bob  had  a  second  mort¬ 
gage  on  the  farm,  and  a  chattel  mortgage 
on  everything  not  exempt  from  execution. 
Poor  Sam  has  been  working  from  that  day 
to  this,  year  in  and  year  out,  to  get  rid  of 
that  mortgage  given  for  Bob’s  sheep. 

The  trouble  with  Sam  was  that  life  had 
been  too  easy  with  him  in  boyhood,  and  a 
little  prosperity  made  him  dizzy,  as  it  has 
made  many  another  man.  He  had  never 
really  studied  farming,  and  when  misfor¬ 
tune  came,  he  grasped,  like  a  drowning 
man,  at  a  straw,  was  easily  the  dupe  of 


1 1 8  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

a  designing  scoundrel,  and  went  into  a 
department  of  farming  of  which  he  had 
no  knowledge  whatever. 

I  count  his  boys  more  fortunate  than 
he.  They  are  experiencing  misfortune 
when  they  are  young;  but  if  they  have 
grit  enough  not  to  be  disgusted  with  farm¬ 
ing,  and  sense  enough  to  look  around  and 
see  that  other  farmers  prosper  who  follow 
out  the  right  lines,  they  may  one  day 
make  the  name  of  Hardup  a  misnomer  in 
their  case. 

Their  brother  Jim  was  a  fortunate  fel¬ 
low.  He  married  a  bright,  snappy  little 
wife,  with  eyes  that  could  blaze  like  coals 
of  fire,  or  make  a  fellow’s  heart  go  pitty- 
pat  when  she  looked  at  him  lovingly  (I 
used  to  see  her  home  from  singing  school 
occasionally),  and  she  took  Jim  in  hand, 
and  made  him,  as  they  say,  “toe  the  mark.” 
I  knew  she  would  do  that.  There  was 
no  sleeping  until  after  sunrise  in  that 
house.  Jim  had  to  work  and  she  managed, 
and  it  is  a  joke  in  the  neighborhood,  that 
when  a  man  wants  a  little  money,  he  is 


ABOUT  THE  HARDUP  FAMILY-.  II Q 

directed  to  go  to  Jim  Hardup.  Whatever 
mistakes  the  rest  made,  Jim  made  none 
when  he  married.  Had  he  married  one 
of  the  clinging-ivy  sort  that  say, “Not  as  I 
will,  but  as  you  please,”  Jim  would  have 
been  as  hard  up  as  any  of  the  Hardups, 
and  his  boys  would  have  lacked  the  grit 
and  snap  that  make  their  name  a  misno¬ 
mer  and  a  standing  joke.  Ben’s  boys  and 
Sam’s  are  renters;  some  of  them  hired 
hands.  Jim’s  boys  own  their  own  farms. 
Moral :  If  you  are  ever  inclined  to  be  easy¬ 
going,  do  not  be  afraid  to  cultivate  the 
acquaintance  of  the  girl  that  has  more  get- 
up  and  snap  than  you  have;  it  may  be  the 
life  of  you,  young  man,  and  I  think  it  will. 

The  Hardups,  however,  do  not  all  live 
in  the  country.  I  know  plenty  of  them 
in  town.  Some  are  chronically  hard  up 
because  they  have  made  mistakes  in  the 
past  and  cannot  help  it.  I  pity  them,  as 
I  do  every  man  that  has  been  unfortunate, 
through  his  own  fault  or  not.  Some  are 
financially  hard  up  for  the  time  being, 
because  of  sickness  or  other  misfor- 


120 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


tunes.  Some,  because  they  have  been  too 
honest,  and  scorned  to  take  an  advantage 
that  would  have  made  them  rich.  Others, 
because  they  have  had  too  much  faith  in 
human  nature,  and  have  been  the  victims 
of  scoundrels  like  Bob  Cheatem,  who  live 
by  studying  the  weak  points  of  their  fel¬ 
low-beings,  winning  their  confidence  and 
robbing  them  under  the  forms  of  law. 
Many  a  fine  house  stands  on  a  corner  lot 
on  a  fashionable  street  in  the  city,  built 
with  money  which  was  never  earned  by 
the  owner,  but  stolen  under  forms  of  law 
from  the  men  who  earned  it;  and  these 
men  now,  if  properly  named,  would  be 
be  called  “Hardup.” 

I  shall  never  forget  the  look  that  came 
on  Sam  Hardup’s  face,  when,  in  passing 
through  his  county  seat  we  came  to  Bob 
Cheatem’s  broker  office,  miscalled  “bank,” 
and  saw  his  fine  horses  and  carriage,  with 
the  liveried  coachman,  standing  by  the 
curbstone.  He  stopped  and  pointing  with 
quivering  finger,  said,  “There  is  the  scoun¬ 
drel  that  has  made  me  and  mine  poor. 


ABOUT  THE  HARDUP  FAMILY.  I  21 

May  ‘his  wife  be  a  widow,  and  his  children 
fatherless/  ”  I  was  about  to  rebuke  him 
when  it  occurred  to  me  that  he  was  quot¬ 
ing  from  one  of  David’s  psalms.  As  we 
passed  on  he  said:  “Henry,  you  will  have 
to  excuse  me  this  time,  but  nothing  but 
the  so-called  cursing  psalms  meet  that 
man’s  case;  and  I  think  it  was  to  describe 
just  such  scoundrels  as  he  that  they  were 
written.  He  owned  those  scabby  sheep, 
and  in  pretending  to  give  good  advice  to 
a  friend  in  trouble,  made  him  poor  for 
life.  ‘Let  his  iniquity  return  upon  his 
own  head.’  ” 

And  I  said,  “Amen/* 


Uncle  Henry. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


ABOUT  THE  RICHMAN  FAMILY. 

My  Dear  Boy: 

I  told  you  in  my  last  letter  about  some 
of  the  misfortunes  that  befell  various  typ¬ 
ical  members  of  the  Hardup  family. 
Whether  they  are  true  to  type  or  not,  you 
can  very  easily  find  out  by  observing  vari¬ 
ous  members  of  that  interesting  family 
within  the  range  of  even  your  limited 
acquaintance.  You  may  possibly  be  in¬ 
terested  in  some  mistakes  that  have  been 
made  by  various  typical  members  of  an¬ 
other  family  equally  ancient  and  honora¬ 
ble — the  Richmans.  The  Richmans  are 
not  nearly  so  numerous  as  the  Hardups. 
For  some  reason  there  are  comparatively 
few  of  them.  Abe  Lincoln  used  to  say 
that  he  thought  the  Lord  must  like  the 
Hardups  best,  or  he  would  not  have  made 


ABOUT  THE  RICHMAN  FAMILY. 


123 


so  many  of  them.  For  some  reason  the 
Richmans  have,  usually,  small  families; 
and  the  more  exclusive  and  aristocratic 
they  become,  the  fewer  children  they 
seem  to  have. 

They  are  a  very  old  family.  We  read 
in  Bible  times  of  one,  Solomon  Richman. 
If  he  had  not  had  plenty  of  money,  I  sup¬ 
pose  he  would  have  gone  by  the  name  of 
“Sol.”  He  knew  a  lot  more  than  any 
man  of  the  family  that  I  ever  heard  of. 
He  was  regarded  as  the  wisest  man  of 
that  day;  and  yet  in  his  old  days,  in  look¬ 
ing  back  over  his  past,  he  seemed  to  put 
very  little  store  on  his  money,  saying  in 
effect,  that  the  piling  up  of  money  was 
vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit,  for  the  rea¬ 
son  that  no  man  could  tell  whether  his 
boy  would  be  a  wise  man  or  a  fool,  or 
words  to  that  effect;  that  the  man  who 
gave  himself  up  solely  to  piling  up  money 
never  knew  who  was  going  to  spend  it, 
and  that  the  very  best  thing  a  boy  or  man 
could  do,  was  to  fear  God  and  keep  his 
commandments.  In  this  opinion  I  con- 


124 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


cur.  He  did  a  great  many  foolish  things, 
but,  taking  all  in  all,  I  regard  him  as  the 
smartest  specimem  of  the  Richman  family 
I  ever  heard  of,  and  I  advise  you  to  read 
his  book  on  the  conduct  of  life,  which 
is  generally  known  by  the  name  of  “Prov¬ 
erbs. ’’ 

I  was  reading  only  last  night  of  a  mem¬ 
ber  of  the  family  who  died  a  few  days  ago 
in  England.  He  began  life  poor,  was  the 
son  of  a  coal  miner,  and  had  scarcely 
enough  to  live  on  the  first  years  of  his  life. 
He  went  to  school  at  night,  lost  his  father 
in  early  youth,  but  became  one  of  -the 
greatest  men  England  ever  produced, 
dying  at  the  ripe  old  age  of  ninety-two, 
and  as  cheerful  in  his  last  days  as  a  boy 
of  twenty. 

While  this  family  numbers  some  of  the 
very  best  people  the  world  has  ever 
known,  it  numbers  a  lot  of  very  great 
scoundrels.  There  seems  to  be  something 
wrong  with  the  breed.  They  are  not  like 
the  Hardups,  an  even  lot;  and  it  is  some¬ 
what  notorious  that  their  boys  seldom 


ABOUT  THE  RICHMAN  FAMILY.  1 2b 

turn  out  as  well  as  those  of  the  Hardups, 
and  their  girls  are  very  liable  to  make 
poor  matches.  I  suppose  this  is  why  they 
are  such  an  uneven  lot. 

One  of  my  earliest  friends  was  Colonel 
Alexander  Richman.  He  was  a  farmer, 
and  got  his  title,  not  by  service  in  the 
army,  but  as  colonel  of  the  militia.  He 
was  a  very  good  farmer,  indeed,  one  of 
best  I  have  ever  known,  and  being  a 
good  business  man  as  well  as  farmer, 
reading  the  agricultural  papers  of  that 
day  very  closely,  watching  the  markets, 
and  keeping  his  credit  away  above  par, 
he  made  a  lot  of  money.  He  branched 
out  into  matters  outside  the  farm,  and  for 
many  years  made  money  hand  over  fist 
without  oppressing  anybody,  or  taking  a 
mean  advantage.  His  word  was  as  good 
as  a  government  bond.  When  his  boys 
got  hold  of  the  business,  backed  as  they 
were  by  their  father’s  unlimited  credit,  it 
spread  out,  so  to  speak,  all  over  creation, 
with  the  result  that  in  a  few  years  the  en¬ 
tire  credit  of  the  family  was  no  greater 


126 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


than  that  of  the  poorest  Hardup  in  the 
neighborhood,  and  their  cash  not  much 
greater  in  amount. 

I  knew  his  brother  John  well.  He  was 
a  well-to-do  farmer,  had  two  hundred 
acres  of  land  of  the  best,  with  the  finest 
improvements,  a  fine  brick  house,  large 
and  commodious  barns,  a  great  orchard, 
every  field  fenced  hog  tight,  and  every 
thing  else  to  match.  He  had  an  only  son 
named  Robert.  His  mother  died  when 
he  was  a  baby,  and  he  was  brought  up  by 
two  maiden  aunts,  in  whose  eyes  nothing 
was  too  good  for  Robert.  He  slept  late 
in  the  morning,  had  an  elegant  pony  to 
ride,  fine  clothes,  and  all  that.  None  of 
the  neighbors’  girls  were  good  enough  for 
him,  and  he  married  a  lady  of  reputed 
wealth  a  long  way  from  home,  who  knew 
nothing  of  farm  life,  and  he  had  to  keep 
two  girls  to  wait  on  her.  When  the  new 
wife  came  the  aunts  paid  dearly  for  their 
indulgence  of  Robert,  and  left,  calling 
him  an  ungrateful  wretch.  In  a  few  years 
a  young  Hardup,  who  was  getting  on  in 


ABOUT  THE  RICHMAN  FAMILY. 


127 


the  world,  took  in  by  sheriff’s  deed  the 
last  forty  of  Robert’s  magnificent  inheri¬ 
tance.  Robert  moved  to  town,  and  died 
a  wreck. 

A  distant  relative  of  this  same  family 
moved  West.  His  mother,  so  the  tradi¬ 
tion  among  the  old  folks  goes,  had  a  fancy 
for  odd  names,  and  she  called  him  Gray- 
bel.  He  was  known  among  the  boys  as 
“Grabe.”  and  rather  well  liked.  He  had 
none  of  the  aristocratic  airs  that  charac¬ 
terized  the  other  members  of  the  family. 
In  fact,  he  became  quite  popular  in  school. 
His  father  was  one  of  the  best  of  the  con¬ 
nection,  and,  in  trying  to  uphold  their 
credit  with  his  own,  failed,  and  young 
Graybel  moved  West,  starting  in  the  world 
poor.  He  worked  late  and  early,  never 
went  in  debt,  lived  poorly,  and  married  a 
thoroughly  good,  quiet  sort  of  a  wife,  of 
whom  he,  as  well  as  his  children,  subse¬ 
quently  made  a  slave.  When  he  got  a 
little  money  ahead  through  working, 
scraping  and  saving,  he  loaned  it  to  his 
neighbors  at  anywhere  from  two  to  five 


128 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


per  cent,  a  month,  a  thing  not  unusual  in 
those  early  days,  and  took  cut-throat 
chattel  mortgages,  iron-bound,  copper- 
bottomed,  and  warranted  to  hold  anything 
except  a  man’s  life  in  his  body.  As  his 
wealth  increased  he  loaned  to  his  neigh¬ 
bors  who  owned  real  estate,  but  were  a 
little  behind-hand,  on  the  same  sort  of 
ironclad  mortgages,  making  all  payments 
due  and  payable  on  default  of  the  principal 
or  interest  of  the  first  payment,  and  fore¬ 
closed  on  the  first  opportunity.  He  be¬ 
came  wealthy  rapidly.  The  love  of  money 
took  complete  possession  of  his  entire  be¬ 
ing.  The  demon  of  avarice  took  an  iron¬ 
clad  mortgage  on  the  entire  family,  except 
his  patient  and  long-suffering  wife,  who 
was  charitable  to  the  extent  to  which  she 
could  carry  on  her  benefactions  in  secret 
— a  limited  extent  in  that  family. 

Father  and  sons  worked  together  with 
one  mind  and  purpose,  drove  hard  bar¬ 
gains,  bought  stock,  land  and  grain  at  the 
very  lowest  prices  which  their  owners 
were  compelled  by  their  hard  necessities 


ABOUT  THE  RICHMAN  FAMILY. 


129 


to  accept,  prying  constantly  into  the  busi¬ 
ness  of  their  neighbors  to  see  how  soon, 
and  to  what  extent,  they  could  put  on  the 
screws.  On  week  days  they  wore  the 
coarsest  clothes,  and  it  was  often  re¬ 
marked  on  the  quiet  that  but  one  of  the 
boys  was  ever  seen  at  church  at  a  time, 
the  old  man  never,  and  that  the  same  suit 
of  clothes  seemed  to  fit  all  the  men  of 
that  family.  Finally  the  wife  and  mother 
died  from  sheer  overwork  and  exposure. 
Her  last  remark  was:  “I  am  so  tired — so 
t-i-r-e-d.” 

In  less  than  a  year  a  second  wife  ap¬ 
peared  on  the  scene,  but  she  did  not  lin¬ 
ger  long.  She  was  smart,  ambitious,  fairly 
well  educated,  liked  to  dress  in  good  taste 
but  not  extravagantly,  had  a  temper  of 
her  own,  and  a  tongue  that  could  cut  like 
a  razor  without  even  raising  the  tone  of 
her  voice.  Long  before  this  happened 
the  neighbors  had  changed  the  name  of 
Graybel  to  Grab  All.  There  was  some 
quiet  talk  in  the  neighborhood  when  Grab 
All  Richman  had  his  hair  dyed,  put  down 


130 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


new  carpets,  got  a  good  suit  of  clothes, 
and  a  fine  new  buggy;  but  before  the  hair 
dye  had  disappeared,  and  long  before  the 
carpets  or  buggy  were  worn  out,  there  was 
a  first-class  sensation  in  the  circuit  court 
in  the  shape  of  a  divorce  suit,  in  which 
Grab  All  Richman  was  defendant  and  his 
wife  plaintiff,  and  a  decree  for  alimony 
which  required  the  sale  of  two  good  farms 
to  satisfy.  This  broke  the  old  man’s 
heart,  and  he  died  in  the  winter.  Before 
the  grass  grew  in  the  spring  on  the  sod 
which  covered  his  grave,  the  sons  were  at 
swords’  points  over  the  division  of  the 
estate,  and  there  was  a  public  washing  of 
soiled  linen  that  disgusted  the  entire 
neighborhood. 

You  will  not  live  many  years,  nor  be¬ 
come  acquainted  in  very  many  neighbor¬ 
hoods  until  you  find  families  and  individ¬ 
uals  that  approximate  to  this  type  of  the 
Richman  family,  though  I  hope  you  will 
not  meet  any  which  this  description  en¬ 
tirely  fits.  I  draw  the  picture  that  you 
may  learn  how  to  shape  your  life  so  that 


ABOUT  THE  RICHMAN  FAMILY.  I  3 1 

its  ending  will  not  have  the  faintest  like¬ 
ness  to  that  which  I  have  drawn. 

The  Richmans,  however,  do  not  all  live 
in  the  country.  Very  few  of  them,  in  fact, 
do,  the  atmosphere  of  the  city  being  much 
more  congenial  to  their  aristocratic  tastes, 
and  city  conditions  much  more  favorable 
to  the  gratification  of  the  chief  ambition 
of  most  of  them,  that  of  making  money, 
or  rather  of  transferring  money  from  the 
pockets  of  other  people  to  their  own.  I 
was  walking  along  one  of  the  fashionable 
streets  of  one  of  the  largest  American 
cities  recently,  with  my  friend,  Silas  Rich- 
man,  who,  by  the  way,  is  a  bit  of  a  philos¬ 
opher.  He  called  my  attention  to  a  num¬ 
ber  of  his  relatives  and  connections  who 
were  driving  along  in  the  fasnionable 
boulevard  with  their  fine  teams  driven  by 
liveried  coachmen,  and  said:  “Please  note 
the  lines  of  care  and  anxiety  written  on 
the  faces  of  those  men,  and  contrast  them 
with  the  happy-go-lucky  air  of  the  people 
who  are  walking  on  this  street  I  have 
studied  this  matter  closely  for  a  number 


132 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


of  years,  and  have  always  found  that  the 
fellows  who  bear  heavy  burdens  ride  in 
that  style,  while  the  men  with  light  hearts, 
happy  countenances,  and  free  from  care, 
and  who  have  real  enjoyment  in  life,  walk. 
I  used  to  train  in  that  crowd.  I  made  in 
twenty  years  over  three-quarters  of  a  mil¬ 
lion  dollars.  I  have  lost  $725,000  of  it, 
and  my  health  besides,  and  I  am  just  be¬ 
ginning  to  realize  what  a  consummate  fool 
I  was,  and  what  consummate  fools  are 
those  relations  of  mine.  In  1893  I  had 
$830,000.  good  value.  I  knew  I  did  not 
need  any  more,  but  I  took  the  foolish 
notion  into  my  head  that  I  must  be  able 
to  truthfully  call  myself  a  millionaire.  I 
made  large  investments  and  involved  my¬ 
self  in  debt  in  order  to  make  that  other 
$170,000  at  one  bold,  Napoleonic  stroke. 
I  had  paid  insurance  for  twenty-five  years, 
and  never  lost  a  cent;  but  just  at  the 
wrong  time  one  building  took  fire  on  which 
I  had  foolishly  allowed  the  insurance  to 
lapse  two  weeks  before,  and  it  swept  away 
$130,000.  In  a  month  another  came  and 


ABOUT  THE  R1CHMAN  FAMILY. 


133 


swept  away  $64,000  more.  This  shook  my 
credit,  and  I  was  obliged  to  sell  property 
at  a  sacrifice.  I  had  built  a  residence 
costing  me  $90,000;  spent  $21,000  in  fur¬ 
nishing  it;  had  fine  teams  and  carriages, 
and  was  starting  out  in  great  style.  When 
one  piece  of  misfortune  after  another 
came,  I  began  to  realize  my  folly,  and 
figured  that  I  could  board  myself  and 
family  in  comfort  for  the  taxes  and  inter¬ 
est  I  was  paying  on  my  establishment.  I 
want  to  say  to  you  now,  that  the  last  year, 
when  I  have  been  living  sensibly  as  a 
common  sort  of  a  man,  has  been  the  hap¬ 
piest  year  of  my  life. 

“I  was  no  greater  fool  than  the  rest  of 
them  are  yet.  Look,  for  instance,  at  my 
cousin  George.  He  was  reputed  worth 
$40,000,000.  He  died  suddenly  last  week, 
a  comparatively  young  man.  When  he  is 
“cut  up,"  that  is,  his  estate  is  divided,  it 
will  probably  be  found  to  be  less  than 
$10,000,000.  His  sons  are  drunkards,  and 
unless  he  has  cut  them  off,  which  I  sus¬ 
pect  he  has,  with  a  life  annuity,  his  prop¬ 
erty  will  go  to  the  dogs. 


134 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


“His  brother  Charles  is  reputed  worth 
twenty  millions,  and  is  probably  worth 
eight;  has  been  once  in  the  penitentiary, 
and  twice  bankrupt.  Each  of  these  men 
has  incidentally  rendered  great  service  to 
the  public  while  getting  rich,  but  they  are 
hated  and  despised  because  of  their  ava¬ 
rice  and  greed.  Charles  told  me,  only  last 
night,  that  if  he  was  as  bad  a  man  as  peo¬ 
ple  thought  he  was,  he  would  drown  him¬ 
self  before  morning.  The  fact  is  that 
fate,  perhaps  you  would  call  it  Providence, 
makes  out  of  their  avarice,  greed  and  am¬ 
bition,  whips  and  goads  to  compel  the 
Richmans  to  carry  out  great  enterprises 
of  which  the  public  receives  the  benefit, 
and  for  which  they  get  the  curses.  As 
for  me,  I  am  gathering  up  what  is  left  of 
the  wreck  of  my  fortune,  the  result  of  my 
foolish  ambition,  and  I  propose  to  take 
what  comfort  I  can  in  this  world  while  I 
am  left  in  it,  and  regain  my  health  if  I 
can.” 

I  would  not  have  you  believe  that  all 
the  Richmans  are  of  the  types  that  I  have 


ABOUT  THE  RICHMAN  FAMILY. 


135 


sketched.  Many  members  of  this  family 
are  among  the  best  people  that  I  have 
ever  known.  The  trouble  with  them  is 
that  they  do  not  run  evenly,  and  have  not 
a  clear,  well-defined  moral  type.  If  they 
were  all  good  men  this  world  would  be  a 
great  deal  better  world  than  it  is. 

I  like  to  see  men  make  money,  and 
plenty  of  it,  honestly.  I  like  to  see  farm¬ 
ers,  merchants,  and  all  sorts  and  condi¬ 
tions  of  men,  who  follow  honest  callings 
and  use  honest  means,  get  on  in  the  world. 
Capital  is  essential  to  the  proper  couduct 
of  the  world’s  business,  and  is  one  of  the 
best  friends  the  poor  man  has  when  han¬ 
dled  by  honest  men.  I  hope  you  will  be 
a  rich  man  some  day,  even  if  your  name 
is  not  Richman;  but  I  could  not  wish  you 
a  worse  fate  than  will  befall  you  if  you 
set  before  yourself  money,  profit,  wealth, 
as  the  end  to  be  desired  above  all  other 
things,  and  at  the  expense  of  honor,  man¬ 
liness  and  character. 

When  this  passion  for  getting  money  in 
any  way  possible,  but  getting  it,  takes 


I36  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

hold  of  a  boy  or  man,  it  is  sure  death  by 
strangulation  to  every  noble  purpose,  and 
every  instinct,  even,  that  distinguishes 
man  from  the  swine  he  feeds.  It  renders 
him  false  to  his  associates — true  friends 
he  can  have  none — cruel  to  his  family  and 
to  his  hired  hand.  He  must  of  necessity 
be  a  harsh  and  cruel  husband;  a  father 
whom  his  sons  and  daughters  may  fear, 
but  can  never  love  as  children  should  love 
their  parents.  Those  whom  he  has 
wronged,  hate  him;  those  who  know  him 
best,  necessarily  despise  him;  and  his 
memory,  like  that  of  the  wicked,  shall  rot. 

Uncle  Henry. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


THE  HARDMAN  FAMILY. 

My  Dear  Boy: 

When  I  was  a  farm  boy  we  had  in  our 
neighborhood  a  representative  of  the 
Hardman  family.  I  supposed  in  my  inno¬ 
cence  that  this  was  about  all  of  that  fam¬ 
ily  or  class  there  were  in  existence;  but  I 
have  since  learned,  and  so  will  you,  that 
they  are  a  large  family,  very  widely  scat¬ 
tered  all  over  the  world,  and  quite  ancient, 
if  not  quite  honorable.  Even  as  a  boy  I 
noticed  that  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  this 
family  was  that  no  one  really  liked  them, 
or  even  pretended  to  like  them,  unless  he 
had  something  to  gain  by  it,  or  fear  from 
them,  if  he  failed  to  pretend  to  like  them. 

I  could  never  discover  that  old  Jakie 
(no  one  never  called  him  Mister)  Hard¬ 
man,  had  a  true  friend.  I  could  never 


I  38  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

discern  that  his  boys  had  any  affection  for 
him,  and,  judging  from  the  way  his  daugh¬ 
ters  ran  away  with  worthless  scamps,  I 
took  it  that  fear  and  not  love,  ruled  in 
that  home. 

After  I  left  home  and  met  with  other 
members  of  the  Hardman  tribe,  I  discov¬ 
ered  several  other  peculiarities.  One  was 
in  their  choice  of  lines  of  business  or  pro¬ 
fession.  I  never  knew  one  of  them  to  be¬ 
come  a  doctor,  preacher,  or  professor  in  a 
college,  and  seldom  one  a  school  teacher, 
and  he  for  not  more  than  one  or  two  terms. 
I  have  known  a  few  of  them  to  become 
lawyers,  but  always  in  connection  with 
some  other  line  of  business,  such  as  note¬ 
shaving,  or  real  estate.  I  never  knew  as 
much  as  one  of  them  to  be  an  editor,  but 
one  or  two  were  business  managers  of 
newspapers — for  a  time.  I  never  knew 
one  of  them  to  be  a  candidate  for  con¬ 
gress,  or  the  state  legislature.  I  have 
known  a  number  that  were  members  of 
city  councils,  and  quite  a  number  who 
were  assessors  in  the  city,  but  never  one 
in  the  country, 


THE  HARDMAN  FAMILY. 


139 


Another  peculiar  feature  of  the  Hard¬ 
mans  is  that  they  do  not  generally  believe 
in  any  education  beyond  the  “three  R’s,” 
readin/  Sitin’  and  ’rithmetic.  I  have 
known,  among  the  hundreds  that  I  have 
met,  a  few  that  were  fairly  good  farmers, 
none  that  were  fairly  up-to-date;  but  as  a 
rule  they  got  rich  and  made  more  money 
than  the  up-to-date  farmers,  not,  however, 
by  farming,  but  by  trading,  and  by  loan¬ 
ing  money  at  the  very  highest  rate  of  in¬ 
terest,  and  on  cut-throat  mortgages. 

Perhaps  the  best  way  to  give  you  an  in¬ 
sight  into  the  Hardman  character  is  to  tell 
you  the  story  of  Tom  Hardman.  He  was 
not  a  bad  boy,  as  I  remember  him,  and 
had  the  sympathy  of  most  of  us,  because 
we  knew  he  had  a  hard  time  of  it  at  home. 
He  was  worked  hard;  driven  like  a  slave, 
in  fact,  from  the  time  school  closed  in 
March,  until  the  beginning  of  the  winter 
term  in  December.  He  was,  however, 
naturally  bright,  and  picked  up  knowl¬ 
edge  quite  readily.  He  was  a  sharp  trader 
even  then,  and  the  boy  who  swapped 


140 


LETTERS  to  the  farm  boy. 


knives  or  caps  with  Tom  Hardman  always 
got  the  worst  of  it.  The  worst  thing  I 
knew  about  him  in  those  days,  was  his 
disposition  to  knuckle  to  the  big  boys 
when  he  ought  to  have  resented  their  in¬ 
sults,  and  his  tyranny  over  the  small  boys 
who  had  no  big  brothers  to  take  their 
part,  two  things,  which,  in  my  observation, 
always  go  together  in  boy  and  man.  He 
ran  away  from  home  at  the  age  of  fifteen, 
and  x^er  I  had  made  the  acquaintance  of 
larrc*  numbers  of  the  Hardman  family,  I 
war*  all  the  more  anxious  to  learn  Tom's 
history. 

On  my  last  trip  abroad  I  noticed  on  the 
passenger  list  the  name  of  Thomas  Hard¬ 
man,  Esq.,  and  was  glad  to  learn,  on  intro¬ 
ducing  myself,  that  he  was  none  other 
than  my  old  schoolmate.  An  ocean 
steamer  furnishes  one  of  the  best  oppor¬ 
tunities  to  study  human  nature  and  find 
out  what  men  really  think  on  all  important 
subjects.  Passengers  are  completely  cut 
off  from  the  outside  world  for  a  week  or 
ten  days.  There  are  no  letters,  telegrams, 


THE  HARDMAN  FAMILY.  I4I 

no  press  of  business,  nothing  whatever  to 
do  but  to  be  seasick,  eat,  sleep,  look  out 
for  whales  and  icebergs,  and  tell  stories  to 
kill  time.  There  is  more  or  less  of  an  ele¬ 
ment  of  danger  to  all,  which  draws  people 
close  together  and  makes  them  willing  to 
reveal  their  true  character.  Neither  Tom 
nor  I  were  seasick,  and  after  we  had 
traced  out  the  history  of  each  of  the  old 
boys  and  girls  in  detail,  we  began  to  un¬ 
fold  our  own  experiences.  He  was  not 
free  to  talk  about  himself  at  first.  I  felt 
my  way  gradually  by  talking  about  mat¬ 
ters  of  current  history,  such  as  the  proba¬ 
ble  working  of  the  “Wilson  bill”  then  go¬ 
ing  into  effect;  then  on  partisan  politics, 
literature,  manufactures,  and  finally  on 
agriculture.  I  told  him  of  my  own  hopes 
and  ambitions  in  the  line  of  newspaper 
work;  that  my  aim  was  to  develop  the 
agriculture  of  the  nation,  and  especially 
of  the  West;  to  aid  in  developing  a  class 
of  farmers  mightier  than  Caesar's  legions, 
more  invincible  than  Cromwell's  Iron¬ 
sides,  the  stay  of  the  country  m  war,  its 


142 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


balance  wheel  in  peace  when  other  classes 
lose  their  heads;  and  that  I  wished  so  to 
live  and  work  that  when  I  was  dead  and 
gone  my  name  would  be  remembered  by 
thousands  as  a  man  who  had  left  the  world 
better  than  he  found  it. 

He  finally  said  to  me  on  the  last  day  of 
the  voyage:  “Henry,  you  have  been  a 
fool  all  your  days.  You  had  it  in  you  to 
make  money  and  plenty  of  it;  but  you 
have  chosen  instead  to  run  on  a  fool’s 
errand  by  trying  to  help  other  people.  I 
have  heard  of  your  doings  from  time  to 
time.  I  know  more  about  you  than  you 
think,  and  what  I  say  to  your  face  I  have 
said  dozens  of  times  behind  your  back. 
You  are  a  fool.  I  have  no  doubt  you 
have  helped  many,  or  at  least  you  think 
you  have.  You  have  also  loaned  money 
on  poor  security,  and  you  have  been  too 
chicken-hearted  to  put  the  screws  down 
hard  and  realize  on  what  security  you 
had.  You  have  let  women  cry  you  out  of 
forcing  collections,  and  they  have  laughed 
at  you  behind  your  back.  What  do  these 


THE  HARDMAN  FAMILY. 


M3 


people  care  for  you  or  yours?  You  have 
helped  men  into  place  and  power,  and 
they  have  kicked  you;  you  have  given 
scoundrels  your  confidence,  and  they  have 
betrayed  it,  and  slandered  and  abused  you 
in  order  to  make  themselves  believe  that 
they  owed  you  nothing. 

“I  have  done  nothing  of  the  kind.  You 
and  I  are  as  wide  apart  as  the  poles.  You 
believe  in  a  God;  I  do  not.  You  believe 
there  is  a  future;  I  do  not.  You  believe 
there  is  a  right  and  wrong;  I  do  not.  You 
believe  there  is  such  a  thing  as  sin;  I  do 
not.  If  there  is  a  sin,  it  is  that  of  perpet¬ 
uating  the  race  in  such  a  cursed  world  as 
this.  You  started  out  to  look  after  other 
people  and  to  teach  them  how  to  fit  them¬ 
selves  for  another  world;  I  started  out  to 
look  after  number  one,  which  means  me, 
myself,  and  I  have  done  it. 

“I  ran  away  from  home,  as  you  know. 
Why  I  did  it  you  know.  My  father  never 
loved  me,  and  I  never  loved  him.  There 
was  no  love  between  my  father  and 
mother,  brothers  and  sisters.  Love  of 


144 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


every  kind  is  a  fool's  dream;  modesty  is 
hypocrisy;  humility,  cowardice.  I  hired 
out  to  a  farmer  out  West  at  $200  a  year 
and  board.  I  drew  enough  to  live  on, 
never  over  $50  a  year,  and  often  much 
less,  and  I  took  his  note  at  ten  per  cent, 
per  annum  for  the  rest,  and  then  loaned 
him  the  interest.  I  did  this  for  ten  years. 
The  tenth  year  he  had  hard  luck.  His 
crops  failed,  his  hogs  died  of  cholera,  and 
his  cows  aborted.  Times  were  hard, 
neither  the  banks  nor  loan  companies  were 
advancing  money,  and  I  foreclosed  and 
took  the  farm  subject  to  a  mortgage  of 
$2,000  which  cut  out  the  homestead  rights 
and  his  wife’s  dower.  I  farmed  and  he 
hired  out. 

“My  credit  was  now  established.  I 
could  borrow  when,  and  as  much  as,  I 
wanted  to.  I  quit  work,  rented  the  farm 
for  cash  rent  with  an  ironclad  lease,  and 
collected  every  cent,  although  it  took  all 
the  fool  fellow  had  and  left  the  judgment 
still  unsatisfied,  which  made  him  my  slave 
for  a  year  or  two  more.  I  looked  out  for 


THE  HARDMAN  FAMILY. 


MS 


lame  ducks  and  took  them  in,  and  made 
money  hand  over  fist. 

“I  soon  got  tired  of  skinning  grangers. 
They  squeal  when  they  are  skinned,  and 
so  do  the  neighbors.  They  have  a  lot  of 
old  fogy  notions  in  the  country.  They 
think  the  Ten  Commandments  are  bind¬ 
ing,  and  that  Christ  talked  business  in  his 
Sermon  on  the  Mount.  At  thirty-five  I 
was  worth  $20,000.  I  shook  the  dust  of 
the  country  from  my  feet  and  came  to  the 
city.  I  came  in  on  the  Wabash.  The 
train  was  detained  by  wrecks — a  freight 
wreck  in  front,  one  behind,  and  one  on  a 
branch  line,  and  we  had  to  wait  half  a  day. 
I  fell  in  with  the  master  mechanic  of  the 
shops  in  the  city,  and  we  got  to  talking 
about  Jay  Gould’s  management  of  his  rail¬ 
roads.  He  told  me  that  Gould  managed 
to  borrow,  or  get  proxies  for  enough  of 
stock  to  elect  him  president,  and  he  then 
in  various  ways  decreased  the  revenues 
by  large  salaries,  by  improvements,  by 
diverting  traffic  to  other  roads,  until  he 
run  the  stock  away  down,  and  bought  in 


146 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


as  much  as  possible.  Shrewd  men  were 
afraid  to  own  stock  in  anything  that  Jay 
Gould  controlled,  and  he  took  advantage 
of  his  own  rascality.  When  he  got  a  large 
amount  of  it  in,  he  began  building  up  the 
road  by  reversing  his  methods,  and  sold 
out  to  suckers.  He  thus  milked  the  pub¬ 
lic  into  his  own  bucket.  I  said  to  myself, 
Why  cannot  I  do  this  on  a  small  scale? 
The  first  thing  I  did  was  to  find  a  corpora¬ 
tion  lawyer  after  my  own  heart,  and  agree 
to  give  him  a  slice  on  the  sly.  He  was 
well  acquainted  in  the  city,  and  we  looked 
out  for  prosperous  corporations  and  found 
one  who  would  sell  enough  stock  to  give 
me  a  controlling  interest  by  voting  with 
one  faction  or  the  other.  We  then  made 
our  deal  for  directors  with  the  side  that 
was  the  more  easily  deceived.  When  we 
got  control  we  put  up  salaries,  wiped  out 
the  surplus,  made  no  dividends,  and  ren¬ 
dered  the  stock  worthless  to  the  minority. 
If  suits  were  brought  my  legal  friend, 
whom  I  employed  to  tell  me,  not  what  the 
law  was,  but  how  I  could  evade  it,  de- 


THE  HARDMAN  FAMILY. 


147 


murred,  delayed,  postponed  and  worried 
the  other  side  until  they  sold  me  their 
stock  for  a  song.  I  soon  found  that  I 
could  swipe  in  a  hundred  dollars  in  the 
the  city  quicker  than  I  could  ten  in  the 
country.  The  best  thing  of  all  is  that  city 
men  do  not  squeal.  Their  code  of  ethics 
is  the  commercial,  not  the  moral.  Their 
motto  is  ‘dog  eat  dog,’  and  hence  in  the 
city  dogs  are  respectable.  If  a  man  at¬ 
tends  a  fashionable  church,  and  is  good 
pay,  he  can  do  about  as  he  pleases.  If 
the  preacher  has  old  fogy  notions,  and 
talks  about  old-fashioned  morality,  he 
soon  gets  a  sore  throat,  or  his  wife  needs 
a  change  of  climate.  It  is  not  so  in  the 
country.  The  stupid  granger  looked  on 
my  proffered  donations  as  ‘the  price  of  a 
dog,’  or  ‘the  hire  of  a  prostitute,’  quoted 
Scripture,  and  said  Tom  Hardman  was 
trying  to  buy  his  way  into  heaven  with 
the  wages  of  unrighteousness.  The  city 
is  the  place  for  me.  There  is  ten  dollars 
to  be  had  by  looting  corporations,  to  one 
by  skinning  grangers.” 


143 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


“Do  you  mean  to  tell  me,”  said  I,  “that 
there  is  no  relief  in  a  corporation  for 
minority  stockholders?  I  myself  am  a 
minority  stockholder  in  a  newspaper  cor¬ 
poration,  and  there  is  trouble  ahead  with 
the  majority.” 

“None,  whatever,  unless  you  can  prove 
the  most  glaring  fraud.  The  majority  can 
defraud  all  they  please  if  they  have  the 
right  kind  of  a  lawyer.  He  can  file  mo¬ 
tions  for  more  explicit  statements;  can 
move  to  strike  out  part  of  the  pleadings, 
or  divide,  and  thus  secure  delay;  he  can 
then  demur,  postpone,  appeal,  ask  for  new 
trials,  and  prolong  litigation  for  ten  years, 
until  the  property  is  entirely  eaten  up  in 
salaries  and  expenses.  The  danger  of  be¬ 
ing  caught  in  fraud  in  a  corporation  never 
troubles  me.  I  never  give  it  a  moment’s 
thought.” 

I  looked  at  him  in  amazement  and  re¬ 
plied:  “Tom,  this  is  the  first  time  we  have 
met  for  forty  years.  It  will,  in  all  proba¬ 
bility,  be  the  last.  I  will  not  put  in  words 
what  I  think  of  you  and  your  methods. 


THE  HARDMAN  FAMILY. 


149 


They  are  not  new.  They  are  as  old  as  the 
Egyptian  bondage.  They  are  the  methods 
of  scoundrels  in  all  ages.  They  have 
ruined,  not  men  merely,  but  nations  and 
civilizations.  The  Prophet  Micah  de¬ 
scribed  just  such  scoundrels  as  you  when 
he  wrote: 

‘Woo  to  them  that  devise  iniquity,— and  work  evil  upon 
their  beds : 

When  the  morning  is  light,  they  practice  it, 

Because  it  is  in  the  power  of  their  hand. 

And  they  covet  fields,  and  take  them  by  violence ; 

And  houses,  and  take  them  away : 

So  they  oppress  a  man  and  his  house, — even  a  man  and  his 
heritage.’ 

“He  described  you  to  a  dot  when  he 
said: 

‘Who  hate  the  good,  and  love  the  evil ; 

Who  pluck  off  their  skin  from  off  them, — and  their  flesh 
from  off  their  bones ; 

Who  also  eat  the  flesh  of  my  people,— and  flay  their  skin 
from  off  them ; 

And  they  break  their  bones,— and  chop  them  in  pieces,  as 
for  the  pot.’ 

“It  is  men  like  you  that  are  corrupting 
the  very  foundations  of  public  morality, 
and  fast  bringing  about  the  same  condi¬ 
tion  of  things  which  the  prophet  de¬ 
scribed  when  he  said: 


150  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

‘The  princes  ********** 

*  *  *  abhor  judgment,  and  pervert  all  equity. 

They  build  up  Zion  with  blood, — and  Jerusalem  with  in¬ 
iquity. 

The  heads  there. -j  judge  for  reward, — and  the  priests  there¬ 
of  teach  for  Hire, 

And  the  prophets  thereof  divine  for  money 

“You  are  a  typical  Hardman,  not  only 
in  name  and  nature,  but  altogether  the 
meanest,  lowest,  and  most  dangerous  that 
I  have  ever  met;  and  notwithstanding  all 
your  disbelief  in  a  future  or  a  God,  or  the 
worth  of  this  present  life,  if  this  ship  were 
to  strike  a  rock  and  begin  to  sink,  you 
would  be  the  first  man  to  push  the  women 
and  children  out  of  the  life  boat  in  order 
to  save  your  worthless  carcass/' 

You  will,  my  dear  boy,  in  the  future 
meet  with  many  of  this  family.  You  will 
not  find  many  as  totally  destitute  of  all 
human  feeling  and  sense  of  honor  as  this 
one.  I  wish,  however,  to  put  you  on  your 
guard  against  the  whole  tribe,  for  when  a 
man  hardens  himself  against  right,  and 
uses  his  full  power  to  oppress,  whether 
his  motive  be  the  love  of  money,  or  the 
love  of  power,  it  is  only  a  question  of 


THE  HARDMAN  FAMILY.  I  5  I 

time,  opportunity  and  ability  when  he  will 
fill  out  the  full  measure  of  the  iniquity  of 
Tom  Hardman.  It  is  only  a  question  of 
time  when  the  man  who  abandons  the 
moral  code  which  has  made  this  nation 
great,  and  gives  himself  over  to  the  teach¬ 
ings  of  commercial  morality,  current  to 
some  extent  in  the  country,  and  more 
largely  in  the  city,  will  become  a  moral 
wreck,  deserving  of  the  scorn  and  con¬ 
tempt  of  all  men  who  love  their  country 
or  their  race. 


Uncle  Henry. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

“commercial  morality.” 

My  Dear  Boy: 

In  my  last  letter  I  quoted  Tom  Hard¬ 
man  as  believing  in  what  he  called  “com¬ 
mercial  morality.”  This  may  possibly  be 
a  new  term  to  you  and  need  explanation. 
You  have  probably  assumed  that  there  is 
but  one  kind  of  morality,  that  which  is 
taught  in  the  Sabbath-school  and  from 
the  pulpit,  is  based  on  the  teachings  of 
Moses  and  the  prophets,  and  finds  its  best 
statement  and  application  in  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount.  Before  you  have  any  very 
large  experience  in  the  world,  you  will 
discover  that  there  is  another  morality, 
practiced  but  not  preached,  that  pervades 
very  largely  the  business  of  the  nations, 
of  our  own  nation,  and  particularly  of  the 
large  cities,  to  no  little  extent  of  the  coun_ 


“commercial  morality/’  153 

try,  and,  to  some  extent,  of  your  own  par¬ 
ticular  neighborhood.  No  pulpit  pro¬ 
claims  it,  no  Sabbath-school  teacher  men¬ 
tions  it,  no  newspaper  advocates  it,  no 
individual  avows  it  until  he  has  reached  a 
point  when  he  feels  it  safe  to  defy  public 
opinion.  With  this  exception,  the  only 
men  who  are  the  avowed  believers  in  this 
commercial  morality  are  common  thieves, 
confidence  men,  gamblers  in  common 
gambling  houses,  gamblers  on  the  boards 
of  trade,  and  such  other  professions  as  are 
under  the  ban  of  public  opinion.  The 
most  common  hypocrisy  practiced  in 
these  modern  days  is  that  of  professing 
to  believe  in  Christian  morality,  and  ycv 
in  business  practicing  commercial  morali¬ 
ty,  and  making  atonement  or  compensa¬ 
tion  by  liberal  contributions,  obtained  by 
practice  of  the  opposite,  in  support  of  the 
teachers  of  Christian  morality. 

To  make  this  plain,  let  me  say  that 
Christianity  assumes  that  there  is  a  possi¬ 
ble  right  and  wrong  in  every  business 
transaction;  that  the  moral  law  governs 


154 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


there,  as  elsewhere;  that  there  can  be  no 
separation  of  business  from  morals,  and 
that  a  fair  and  just  trade  is  as  pleasing  to 
the  Almighty  as  a  church  contribution,  a 
prayer,  or  a  sermon.  If  the  Bible  does 
not  teach  this  in  its  every  page,  directly 
or  indirectly,  I  confess  I  have  never  been 
able  to  understand  its  meaning.  Com¬ 
mercial  morality,  on  the  other  hand, 
assumes  that  business  is  one  thing,  benev¬ 
olence  another;  or,  to  put  it  in  the  tersest 
possible  terms,  business  is  business;  by 
which  bad  men  mean  that  business  has  no 
connection  whatever  with  morals  or  relig¬ 
ion.  Good  men  frequently  use  the  term 
with  an  entirely  different  meaning,  name¬ 
ly,  that  business  should  be  conducted  on 
well  established  business  principles.  Now, 
the  truth  is,  that  while  business  should  be 
conducted  on  the  principles  which  human 
experience  for  ages  has  proved  to  be  cor¬ 
rect,  none  the  less  will  a  business  conduct¬ 
ed  on  these  principles  prove  to  be  one  of 
the  highest  forms  of  benevolence,  in  that 
it  will  encourage  thrift,  self-control,  integ- 


“commercial  morality."  155 

rity,  and  furnish  reliable  and  steady  em¬ 
ployment  to  the  thousands  that  are  not 
capable  of  conducting,  on  their  own  ac¬ 
count,  large  business  enterprises.  While 
business  is  not  religion,  nevertheless  it 
furnishes  the  best  possible  sphere  for  the 
practice  of  the  basic  principles  of  all  re¬ 
ligion,  taught  in  every  pulpit  in  Chris¬ 
tian  lands.  If  we  divorce  business  from 
religion,  we  cut  the  very  foundation  from 
under  all  the  civilization  that  the  world 
has  yet  achieved  that  is  worth  retaining. 

The  danger  to  the  farm  boy  is,  that  he 
may  adopt  the  maxims  which  I  have  quot¬ 
ed  above  in  their  bad  sense,  instead  of  in 
their  true  and  proper  sense;  and  it  is  only 
a  question  of  time,  opportunity  and  cir¬ 
cumstances,  when,  if  he  should  do  so,  he 
will  develop  a  character  of  which  Tom 
Hardman  is  an  extreme,  but  by  no  means 
an  uncommon,  type.  The  foundation  of 
all  dishonest  business  is  in  buying  a  thing 
for  less  than  it  is  worth.  Every  thorough¬ 
ly  honest  trade  gives  a  full  equivalent  for 
the  value  received.  I  wish  you  to  get  this 


I56  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

idea  clearly  in  mind.  Honest  dealing  con¬ 
sists  in  buying  things  for  what  they  are 
worth,  as  determined  by  the  supply  and 
demand;  dishonest  dealing  consists  in 
getting  in  some  way  the  advantage,  and 
buying  for  less  than  they  are  worth. 
Every  trade  on  its  face  purports  to  be  the 
exchange  of  goods,  or  goods  for  money, 
as  of  equal  value,  or  as  a  full  equivalent. 
You  say:  How  is  it  possible  for  men  to 
make  money,  or  profit  by  trading,  if  in 
every  honest  deal  a  full  equivalent  is 
given?  The  answer  is  easy  and  can  best 
be  given  by  way  of  illustration.  Your 
father  raises  corn.  He  grows  more  than 
the  family,  or  the  stock  on  the  farm,  can 
consume,  or  than  he  desires  to  keep  for 
an  advanced  price.  He  sells  this  corn  at 
its  market  value  on  the  date  of  sale  as  de¬ 
termined  by  the  supply  and  demand  in 
great  markets.  He  can  not  use  or  keep 
it  to  advantage.  He  therefore  sells  it  to 
the  man  who  has  use  use  for  it,  either  to 
feed  to  his  stock,  or  to  ship  to  a  distant  mar¬ 
ket  at  carload  rates,  which  are  always  less 


“commercial  morality.”  157 

than  rates  on  part  of  a  carload.  While  a  full 
equivalent  is  rendered,  your  father  is  the 
gainer,  because  he  has  disposed  of  some¬ 
thing  for  which  he  had  no  present  use. 
The  money  that  he  receives  for  it  is  of 
more  value  to  him  than  the  corn,  while 
the  corn  is  of  more  value  to  the  buyer 
than  the  money;  hence,  both  profit  by  this 
strictly  honest  trade. 

Your  father  grows  live  stock  as  a  means 
of  disposing  to  better  advantage  the 
products  of  his  farm.  When  it  is  finished 
he  can  not  use  it  to  advantage.  It  has 
gained  all  that  it  can  profitably.  He 
ships  it  to  the  nearest  stock  market 
and  sells  it  to  the  packer.  Your  father 
can  use  the  money  to  much  better  ad¬ 
vantage  than  he  could  the  live  stock; 
the  packer  can  use  the  live  stock  to  much 
much  better  advantage  than  he  could  the 
money;  hence,  each  profits  by  the  trans¬ 
action,  for  each  has  disposed  of  an  article 
for  which  he  has  no  present  use, — your 
father,  the  live  stock;  the  packer,  the 
money. 


I58  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

Your  father  wishes  to  buy  live  stock  to 
consume  his  grain,  but  does  not  have  the 
money;  the  banker  has.  He  gives  his 
note  for  six  months  at  six  or  eight  per 
cent,  interest,  figuring  that  after  paying 
the  interest,  and  paying  himself  market 
price  for  the  corn,  and  a  reasonable  price 
for  the  grass  that  it  will  take  to  fatten  the 
stock,  he  will  have  more  left  than  will  pay 
the  interest  on  the  note.  The  banker  has 
more  money  than  he  needs  and  he  loans 
it  for  the  interest  it  will  bring.  The  banker 
puts  the  money  to  work  for  him  in  the 
way  of  bringing  in  interest;  your  father 
puts  the  money  to  work  in  condensing  his 
crops  for  market;  hence,  each  is  a  gainer 
by  the  transaction,  and  neither  would  en¬ 
ter  into  it  unless  he  had  reason  to  believe 
he  would  be  the  gainer.  Each  has  ren¬ 
dered  to  the  other  a  full  equivalent,  and 
by  reason  of  their  different  circumstances 
and  conditions,  each  makes  a  profit.  The 
same  law  applies  in  all  kinds  of  legitimate 
business.  A  full  equivalent  is  rendered 
in  every  case  with  the  prospect  of  possi- 


“COMMERCIAL  MORALITY.”  I  59 

ble  and  probable  profit  to  both  parties  in 
the  transaction.  All  such  transactions 
are  in  accordance  with  Christian  morality. 

Men  who  are  guided  by  commercial 
morality  act  from  entirely  different  meth¬ 
ods.  The  idea  of  getting  either  something 
for  nothing,  or  much  for  little,  is  the  pre¬ 
vailing  motive  with  them.  For  example, 
the  manufacturers  of  any  line  of  goods 
form  a  trust.  They  close  up  factories, 
dismiss  labor,  limit  production,  and  ad¬ 
vance  the  price,  the  object  being  to  secure 
from  every  consumer  something  more 
than  the  article  is  really  worth,  or  for 
which  it  can  be  produced.  They  think 
they  can  do  it,  and  proceed  to  do  it  with¬ 
out  the  slightest  regard  to  the  rights  of 
labor,  or  to  the  real  cost  of  production, 
and  on  the  theory,  which  is  the  essence  of 
savagery  and  barbarism,  that  might  makes 
right.  The  robber  barons  of  the  Middle 
Ages  who  occupied  commanding  positions 
on  the  great  highways  of  travel,  levied 
blackmail  on  all  comers  and  goers  be¬ 
cause  they  could.  Their  legitimate  sue- 


160  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

cessoi>  are  the  robber  trusts  of  the  nine¬ 
teenth-  century,  who  take  a  few  cents  from 
this  man,  and  a  few  dollars  from  that, 
simply  because  they  can,  or  think  they 
can.  This  is  commercial  morality. 

The  railroads  have  a  large  amount  of 
what  is  known  as  watered  stock;  that  is, 
certificates  of  stock  issued  without  the 
value  of  the  face  of  the  stock  being  ex¬ 
pended  in  constructing  the  road.  In  other 
words,  it  was  issued  without  consideration. 
In  order  to  secure  dividends  on  this 
watered  stock,  they  have  been  forming 
combinations  for  the  last  twenty  or  thirty 
years,  agreeing  to  advance  and  maintain 
rates  and  compel  the  public  to  pay  the 
increase.  The  only  justification  made  for 
this  is  that  they  can.  We  find,  when  we 
get  down  to  the  very  truth,  that  the  basis 
of  all  modern  rate-making,  is  “what  the 
traffic  will  bear;”  that  is,  what  the  public 
can  be  forced  to  pay.  This  is  commercial 
morality, — the  morality  of  the  robber 
baron  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  morality 
of  the  thief  and  the  robber.  I  can;  there- 


“commercial  morality."  161 

fore,  I  will.  Or,  as  Rob  Roy  puts  it: 
Let  him  take  who  will,  and  keep  who 

CAN. 

Corporations  of  all  kinds  take  kindly  to 
commercial  morality.  A  corporation  is 
an  artificial  person.  It  is  made  up  of 
stockholders  who  own  shares,  and  it  ex¬ 
empts  the  shareholder  from  any  personal 
liability  beyond  the  value  of  his  shares. 
Its  life  is  limited  to  the  years  prescribed 
in  the  charter  by  the  law,  but  provides  for 
a  renewal  indefinitely,  and  a  majority  vote 
of  the  shareholders  governs.  It  is  thus 
endowed  with  practical  immortality. 
Death,  that  cuts  short  the  robberies  of  the 
individual,  spares  the  corporation.  It  has 
no  soul  to  be  saved,  or  to  be  lost,  and 
hence  is  very  likely  to  ignore  all  moral 
precepts,  all  idea  of  responsibility  to  a 
higher  Power,  and  very  gradually  develops 
among  men  who  have  much  to  do  with 
corporations,  what  is  known  as  a  “corpor¬ 
ate  conscience" — a  conscience  that  has  no 
regard  for  moral  law,  and  but  little  regard 
for  human  law.  For  it  is  a  curious  fact 


1 62  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

that  a  man  who  repudiates  moral  obliga¬ 
tions  has  little  respect  for  legal  obliga¬ 
tions.  The  more  experienced  he  becomes 
the  less  respect  he  has,  owing  to  the  fact 
that  he  finds  out  how  easy  it  is  to  evade 
legal  penalties  by  methods  which  I  have 
in  a  previous  letter  described.  Many  men, 
in  fact,  have  two  consciences, — a  corpor¬ 
ate  conscience,  and  an  individual.  As 
members  of  a  corporation,  they  will  do 
things,  apparently  with  a  clear  conscience, 
which  they  would  absolutely  scorn  to  do 
in  the  transaction  of  their  private  business. 
In  the  one  case  commercial  morality,  or 
the  morality  of  the  thief  and  the  robber, 
governs;  in  their  private  business  Chris¬ 
tian  morality  governs  until  the  greater  im¬ 
mediate  gain  to  be  made  by  corporation 
methods  blunts  the  Christian  conscience, 
and  they  become  business  hypocrites,  pro¬ 
fessing  one  thing,  and  practicing  the  op¬ 
posite.  Hence,  in  large  cities  business  is 
becoming  largely  “dog  eat  dog,”  the  men 
in  one  line  of  business  waiting  patiently 
until  sharpness  of  competition  results  in 


“commercial  morality.”  163 

the  failure  of  a  competitor,  and  then  they 
all  pounce  on  the  crippled  man  and  de¬ 
vour  his  substance,  much  as  a  pack  of 
wolves  stop  in  their  chase  to  devour  one 
that  has  been  shot  by  the  pursued. 

I  was  sitting,  one  evening,  on  deck  of  a 
steamer  on  the  Pacific,  as  the  cooks  were 
clearing  off  the  tables  and  throwing  the 
scraps  out  of  the  porthole  into  the  ocean. 
Dozens  of  white  gulls  were  following  in 
the  wake  of  the  ship,  and  dropping  down 
and  devouring  the  bucketfuls  of  scraps  as 
they  were  thrown  out  on  the  waves.  One 
large,  gray  gull,  of  an  entirely  different 
species,  followed  along  leisurely,  and  just 
as  the  white  gulls  began  to  devour  the 
coveted  morsels,  dropped  down  amongst 
them  and  scooped  everything  into  his 
capacious  crop.  He  kept  this  up  for  an 
hour,  and  I  marveled  at  that  bird’s  capaci¬ 
ty,  and  said  to  myself:  “There  is  a  type 
of  business  life;  that  scoundrel  waits  until 
the  gulls  have  located  the  food  and  had  a 
taste,  when  he  swoops  down  and  takes  in 
the  bulk  of  it.”  By  sheer  force  of  power 


164  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

he  was  the  robber  of  the  sea,  and  a  fine 
illustration  of  a  class  of  men  who  are  gov¬ 
erned  only  by  commercial  morality. 

Nor  is  the  country  exempt  from  the 
operations  of  men  guided  only  by  com¬ 
mercial  morality.  The  horse  jockey  is, 
perhaps,  the  best  type, — a  type,  however, 
so  well  known  by  honest  men,  that  he  is 
never  trusted  by  farmers.  They  never 
believe  what  a  horse  jockey  tells  them. 
They,  perhaps,  have  never  stated  the  rea¬ 
son  to  themselves,  but  it  is  because  he  is 
guided  by  commercial  morality.  They 
do  not  believe  him  even  when  he  is  not 
trading  horses.  They  are  right  in  this, 
for  a  man  who  learns  to  deceive  in  one 
line,  will  soon  learn  to  deceive  in  all.  A 
more  respectable  type,  but  more  danger¬ 
ous,  is  the  broker  who  calls  himself  a  ban¬ 
ker  and  extorts  usury,  anywhere  from  one 
to  five  per  cent,  a  month,  because  he  can, 
When  I  hear  farmers  say  that  such  a  bro¬ 
ker,  or  so-called  banker,  is  not  “in  busi¬ 
ness  for  his  health,”  I  know  exactly  what 
they  mean. 


“commercial  morality/’  165 

A  still  more  dangerous  type  is  that  of 
the  respectable  farmer  who  practices  the 
broker's  methods.  He  has  money  to  lend, 
not  to  the  best  farmers,  but  to  the  worst, 
whenever  their  hard  necessities  compel 
them  to  pay  extortionate  interest.  This 
scoundrel  often  creates  necessities  by  urg¬ 
ing  men  to  borrow,  when  he  knows  that 
borrowing  must  lead  to  loss,  extending 
credit  to  an  unreasonable  limit,  and  when 
he  finds  the  borrower  in  a  tight  place  by 
reason  of  crop  failures,  or  other  misfor¬ 
tunes,  puts  on  the  screws  and  demands  im¬ 
mediate  payment;  and  in  default,  fore¬ 
closes,  bankrupting  the  borrower.  An¬ 
other  example  is  that  of  the  landlord  who 
uses  all  the  power  given  him  by  a  land¬ 
lord's  lien,  either  to  bankrupt  the  renter 
completely,  or  to  hold  a  judgment  over 
him  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  him  his 
slave  for  years  to  come,  and  all  because 
the  law  gives  him  the  power,  which  he 
mistakes  for  the  right. 

I  have  thus  far  spoken  of  men  who 
practice  commercial  morality  with  a  set 


1 66 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


purpose  for  gain.  I  would  not  do  justice 
to  a  large  class  of  business  men,  were  I  to 
fail  to  state  that  many  of  them  are  com¬ 
pelled,  in  a  manner,  to  practice  commer¬ 
cial  morality,  or  go  out  of  business.  Let 
me  illustrate:  A  large  store  in  the  city, 
for  example,  that  repudiates  Moses  and 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  believes 
thoroughly,  in  a  bad  sense,  that  “business 
is  business,”  offers  for  sale,  at  a  low  price, 
goods  that  have  been  dishonestly  made 
by  contract,  possibly  in  sweat  shops,  or  in 
factories  where  shoddy  displaces  hon¬ 
est  material,  and  where  workmanship  is 
cheap  and  poor.  This  class  of  stores  sets 
the  pace  which  honest  men  must  follow, 
or  go  out  of  business,  at  least  until  com¬ 
mercial  morality  is  so  far  educated  out  of 
buyers  that  they  lose  their  mania  for  buy¬ 
ing  bargains.  Until  this  is  done,  the  dis¬ 
honest  element  in  business  will  set  the 
pace  which  honest  men  must  follow,  or 
quit.  These  dishonest  dealers  compete 
with  each  other  in  the  race  of  securing 
cheaper  and  more  worthless  goods,  by 


“commercial  morality.”  167 

cheapening  material,  lowering  the  price 
of  labor,  forcing  honest,  but  poor,  laborers 
into  pauperism,  and  honest  and  skilled 
laborers  to  accept  the  wages  of  the  un¬ 
skilled,  thus  degrading  labor,  demoraliz¬ 
ing  business,  debauching  the  public  mor¬ 
als,  and  transforming  us  into  a  nation  of 
adulterators,  money  -  grabbers,  bargain- 
seekers,  and  all  that,  until  the  problem  of 
how  to  be  an  honest  merchant,  and  prac¬ 
tice  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  on  week 
days  while  professing  it  on  Sabbath,  is 
one  of  the  most  difficult  problems  of 
human  experience.  I  seldom  hear  a  lady 
boasting  of  how  cheap  she  bought  a  dress 
or  bonnet,  without  thinking  of  the  poorly 
paid  woman  who  made  that  bonnet.  Laz¬ 
arus  must  work  cheap,  beg,  or  starve,  in 
order  that  Dives  may  fare  sumptuously 
every  day.  The  trouble  is  that  the  mania 
for  cheapness,  the  craze  for  the  bargain 
counter,  pervades  the  city  and  country 
alike;  and  when  we  come  to  the  last  anal¬ 
ysis,  it  is  closely  related  to  the  gambler’s 
mania  of  getting  something  for  nothing. 


1 68  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

I  did  not  intend  to  moralize  in  this  way, 
but  it  is  better  that  you  should  understand 
before  entering  on  active  work  some  of 
the  difficulties  and  perplexities  with  which 
the  business  man  must  grapple  if  he  in¬ 
tends  to  be  a  thoroughly  honest  man. 

It  is  a  very  healthy  sign  that  in  nearly 
all  country  communities  men  who  follow 
these  practices  are  more  or  less  under  the 
ban  of  public  opinion,  an  opinion  not  al¬ 
ways  expressed,  but  felt.  One  of  the  high¬ 
est  compliments  that  farming  communities 
pay  to  themselves,  is  the  high  honor  in 
which  they  hold  farmers  and  business  men 
of  all  classes  who  do  business  on  princi¬ 
ples  of  the  highest  honor.  When  a  man 
sends  a  carload  of  hogs  or  cattle,  to  the 
dealer  at  the  station  in  the  full  confidence 
that  whether  the  market  of  the  day  before 
be  up  or  down,  he  will  get  the  full  value 
without  a  previous  contract,  he  pays  him 
about  as  high  honor  as  one  man  can  well 
pay  another,  and  we  have  noticed  that 
dealers  who  treat  farmers  in  this  spirit  are 
almost  uniformly  men  who  make  money. 


“commercial  morality.”  169 

In  all  dealings  of  man  with  man,  the  con¬ 
fidence  of  the  customer  is  the  most  valua¬ 
ble  asset  of  the  dealer.  It  is  something 
that  cannot  be  taxed,  or  destroyed  by  fire, 
or  by  flood;  cannot  be  measured  by  dol¬ 
lars,  but  is  gradually  coined  into  dollars 
as  we  transform  the  rain,  the  sunshine,  the 
electric  currents,  and  the  fertility  of  the 
soil  into  crops.  There  can  be  no  confi¬ 
dence,  whatever,  reposed  in  the  man  or 
corporation  that  is  guided  only  by  com¬ 
mercial  morality.  It  is  death  to  manhood, 
death  to  legitimate  business,  death  to 
every  noble  feeling  and  aspiration,  and 
were  it  generally  practiced,  or  even  near¬ 
ly  so,  it  would  be  death  to  the  civilization 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  is  under  the 
condemnation  of  every  law  of  God;  it  is 
under  the  ban  of  all  good  men;  it  is  civil¬ 
ized  savagery  and  business  barbarism;  at 
least,  so  believes  your 


Uncle  Henry. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 


THE  BRODHEAD  FAMILY. 

My  Dear  Boy: 

When  I  was  your  age,  although  I  had 
been  very  well  instructed  in  the  doctrine 
of  “total  depravity”  as  a  theological  prop¬ 
osition,  I  did  not  believe  that  such  men 
as  Bob  Cheatem  and  Tom  Hardman  had 
any  real  existence  in  country  places.  I 
thought  they  belonged  to  the  city.  1 
thought  the  doctrine  of  “total  depravity” 
as  a  theological  proposition,  had  to  be 
modified  in  a  great  many  ways  to  make  it 
conform  to  the  facts  of  existence.  I  had 
never  heard  of  “commercial  morality,”  but 
a  great  deal  of  the  morality  taught  from 
the  pulpit  and  in  the  home.  I  was  taught 
that  while,  as  an  abstract  principle,  men 
were  totally  depraved,  and  sinned  as  soon 
as  they  were  born,  if  not  before,  or  at 


THE  BRODHEAD  FAMILY.  ijl 

least,  as  soon  as  they  were  able,  neverthe¬ 
less,  it  was  but  just  and  fair  that  men 
should  prove  themselves  bad  before  I  had 
a  right  to  treat  them  as  bad  men.  It  has 
cost  me  a  good  deal  of  money  and  grief 
to  learn  that  I  was  mistaken  in  some 
things,  and  to  discover  that,  even  amidst 
country  surroundings,  among  farmers  and 
farm  boys,  types  of  the  characters  I  have 
mentioned  were  possible  and  actual.  I 
have  painted  these  pictures  for  you  be¬ 
cause  I  have  undertaken  to  furnish  you 
sketches  from  life  that  you  may  recognize 
as  correct,  or  at  least  approximately  so, 
in  your  own  county,  in  any  county,  in  any 
state,  and  in  any  land.  You  ought  to 
know  something  of  the  world  of  men  with 
whom  you  must  soon  deal,  and  “fore¬ 
warned  is  forearmed.”  If  I  were  to  stop 
painting  these  pictures  now,  I  would  give 
you  an  entirely  wrong  conception  of 
human  nature.  The  good  people,  not 
wholly  good,  but  people  who  are  trying  to 
live  right  lives  and  deal  on  honor,  as  in 
the  sight  of  God,  with  their  fellow-men, 


172  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

outnumber  vastly  those  who  are  parasites 
on  society;  not  merely  parasites,  but  foes 
to  all  that  is  good,  and  who  are,  by  their 
crooked  methods,  sapping  the  very  foun¬ 
dations  of  our  civilization. 

I  shall  not  be  able  to  find  time  to  tell 
you  of  the  scores  and  scores  of  nobler 
types  of  farm  boys  who  are  now  making 
this  nation  great, — the  Brodheads,  the 
Goodmans,  the  Wisemans,  the  Faithfuls, 
and  dozens  of  other  similar  types  that  are 
well  worth  sketching.  When  I  come  to 
study  the  better  class  of  farmers,  and 
the  business  men  of  the  great  cities  who 
have  grown  up  on  the  farm,  whose  lives 
have  been  fashioned  on  farm  models,  the 
number  of  pictures  that  rise  before  me  is 
so  great  that  it  embarrasses  me  to  make 
the  selection,  and  I  find  it  impossible  to 
find  time  or  space  to  describe  them  all. 
They  are  not  all  perfect — none  of  them 
are.  1  hold  it  true  that  there  is  not  “a 
just  man  upon  earth that  is,  an  absolute¬ 
ly  just  man,  “that  doeth  good,,  always  and 
everywhere,  and  “sinneth  not,”  nor  makes 


THE  BRODHEAD  FAMILY. 


T73 


a  mistake.  I  would  do  wrong  if  I  were  to 
describe  such.  The  beauty  and  power  of 
the  Scriptures  rest  largely  upon  the  fact 
that  they  describe  actual  men  and  not  per¬ 
fect  saints.  I  always  take  delight  in  read¬ 
ing  that  story  of  Moses  when  he,  grown 
up  in  the  court,  the  companion  of  princes, 
got  mad  and  killed  the  Egyptian  who  was 
imposingon  one  of  his  poor  and  oppressed 
brethren.  It  was  not  right  for  Moses  to  do 
that,  and  he  had  to  leave  the  country  for 
forty  years  for  doing  it;  but  I  do  like  to 
see  a  man’s  blood  boil  at  the  sight  of 
wrong,  even  if  he  does  make  a  mistake  in 
his  methods.  If  I  were  judge,  these  men 
would  get  off  easily.  I  have  always  felt 
more  kindly  to  Abraham  after  reading  that 
fib  he  told  Pharoah  about  his  good-look¬ 
ing  wife.  It  was  mean  in  him  to  do  it, 
and  dangerous  as  well;  but  otherwise 
Abraham  would  have  been  such  a  perfect 
character  that  you  and  I  would  not  think 
of  trying  to  imitate  him.  The  story  of 
Jacob’s  sharp  practice  with  Laban  in  divid¬ 
ing  up  the  stock,  where  it  was  diamond 


174 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


cut  diamond,  the  sin  of  David,  and  the 
foolishness  of  Solomon  the  Wise,  all  show 
that  the  Bible  paints  men  as  they  are,  and 
not  as.  they  should  be;  and  in  my  feeble 
way  I  am  trying  to  do  the  same  thing  for 
you.  There  is  no  man  that  I  have  ever 
seen  that  I  would  like  to  hold  up  to  you 
as  a  perfect  model.  We  are  all  but  abridg¬ 
ments  of  a  perfect  humanity,  and  the  very 
strength  of  character  in  one  right  line 
seems  almost  of  necessity  to  involve  a 
corresponding  weakness  in  some  other 
line. 

Of  all  the  types  of  men  I  have  met,  I 
know  few  that  are  more  deserving  of 
your  imitation  than  the  Brodheads,  al¬ 
though  some  others  are  equally  worthy. 
Perhaps  I  take  more  kindly  to  these  than 
most  others,  for  the  reason  that  Squire 
Brodhead  was  one  of  my  earliest  advisors, 
notwithstanding  the  disparity  in  our  years. 
He  was  my  friend  and  my  father’s  friend. 
No  true  man  can  hold  in  anything  else 
than  very  great  reverence,  the  man  who 
has  been  both  his  friend,  and  his  father’s 


THE  BRODHEAD  FAMILY. 


175 


friend.  A  friendship  that  will  last  through 
two  generations  is  of  the  right  sort,  and 
must  be  based  on  real  merit.  Nothing 
short  of  genuine  worth  will  bear  that 
sort  of  strain.  I  call  him  “Squire,” 
which  he  was  not  legally,  but  in  fact.  He 
was  never  a  justice  of  the  peace.  He  ob¬ 
tained  his  title  because,  when  compara¬ 
tively  a  young  man,  he  was  noted  for 
being  able  to  tell  his  neighbors,  whenever 
any  difficulty  occurred  between  them, 
what  was  the  right  thing  to  do,  and  the 
right  time  to  do  it.  He  was  one  of  those 
men  whose  breadth  and  clearness  of  view 
enables  them  to  get  at  the  real  rights  of 
things,  and  he  had  the  wisdom  to  know 
what  to  say  and  when  to  say  it.  He,  there¬ 
fore,  became  by  common  consent  a  sort 
of  arbitrator  of  difficulties,  and  general 
advisor,  and  they  dubbed  him  “The 
Squire.”  I  have  heard  that  they  tried  to 
elect  him  once,  and  did  elect  him  against 
his  consent,  but  he  refused  to  qualify,  by 
saying  that  he  had  a  poor  opinion  of  law 
and  of  lawyers;  did  not  believe,  in  fact, 


I76  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

that  honest  men  had  anything  to  do  with 
law,  that  they  lived  above  it;  and  quoted 
the  Scripture:  “The  law  was  not  made  for 
the  righteous  man,  but  for  the  lawless  and 
disobedient.”  He  once  told  me  that  two 
of  his  neighbors  quarreled  and  employed 
able  lawyers,  and  that  he  happened  to 
know  that  one  of  the  lawyers  had  said  to 
the  other:  “We  have  two  fat  geese  to  be 
picked,  and  we  are  foolish  if  we  do  not 
get  a  fine  crop  of  feathers  every  term  of 
court”  He  told  the  litigants  this  fact, 
settled  their  difficulties  for  them,  and 
made  up  his  mind,  as  he  afterwards  told 
me,  that  there  should  be  no  litigation 
among  his  neighbors  if  he  could  possibly 
help  it;  and  therefore  he  was  “The  Squire” 
until  the  day  of  his  death. 

He  was  a  first-class  farmer, — one  of  the 
best  I  have  ever  known.  He  was  not  a 
particularly  hard  worker.  He  used  to  tell 
me,  in  fact,  that  if  a  man  did  not  work 
with  his  brains  it  was  not  much  matter 
whether  he  worked  with  his  hands  or  not. 
He  seemed  to  make  money  easily,  and  the 


THE  BRODHEAD  FAMILY. 


1 77 


neighbors  counted  him  lucky.  I  once 
asked  him  the  secret  of  his  success,  and 
he  said  there  was  no  secret  about  it;  that 
when  everybody  wanted  to  buy,  he  sold; 
and  when  the  neighbors  wanted  to  sell,  he 
bought:  and  that  it  was  always  safe  to  buy 
as  much  as  you  had  money  to  pay  for 
when  it  was  offered  at  less  than  the  cost 
of  production.  When  the  neighbors  quit 
breeding  horses  because  of  the  construc¬ 
tion  of  the  Pennsylvania  railroad,  thinking 
there  would  be  no  further  market  forthem, 
he  began  growing  colts,  giving  it  as  his 
judgment  that  the  development  of  the 
country,  as  the  result  of  steam  carriage, 
would  increase  the  demand  for  horses  far 
beyond  anything  that  had  ever  been 
known  before.  He  was  the  first  in  our 
neighborhood  to  introduce  tile  drainage, 
among  the  first  to  grow  clover,  to  use  the 
drill,  the  mowing  machine,  the  horse  rake 
and  the  reaper. 

He  was  a  man  of  very  decided  opinions 
on  any  subject  on  which  he  would  give  an 
opinion  at  all,  and  one  of  the  most  admir- 


1/8  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

able  traits  of  his  character  was  that  he  had 
the  most  profound  respect  for  the  exactly 
opposite  opinions  held  by  his  neighbors. 
His  cousin  James,  living  on  the  adjoining 
farm,  was  a  man  of  the  same  mold  of 
character.  Both  were  true  Brodheads, 
differing  widely  on  many  subjects,  espec¬ 
ially  on  politics  and  religion;  and  yet  be¬ 
tween  the  two  there  was  never  the  slight¬ 
est  misunderstanding,  or  even  the  suspen¬ 
sion  of  the  most  intimate  personal  rela¬ 
tions.  The  Squire  was  a  Presbyterian  of 
the  most  pronounced  type;  James  was, 
on  all  doctrinal  points,  a  good  Methodist. 
The  Squire  was  a  Whig,  believed  in  a  pro¬ 
tective  tariff  and  public  improvements, 
and  spelled  the  word  “nation/’  with  a  big 
N;  James  was  a  Democrat — other  Whigs 
called  him  a  “Locofoco,”  the  Squire  never, 
— believed  in  free  trade,  as  little  govern¬ 
ment  as  possible,  was  jealous  of  the  en¬ 
croachments  of  the  national  government, 
spelled  both  “state”  and  “nation”  with  cap¬ 
itals.  James  always  put  up  a  tall  hickory 
pole  as  soon  as  the  campaign  opened;  the 


THE  BRODHEAD  FAMILY. 


179 


Squire  allowed  his  boys  to  put  up  a  Whig 
pole  as  tall,  but  no  taller.  The  anti-slavery 
feeling  was  rising,  and  the  Squire  kept  a 
station  on  the  “underground  railway.” 
One  of  his  boys  was  conductor,  and  many 
a  slave  fleeing  from  bondage,  who  in  some 
mysterious  way  had  found  a  hiding  place 
in  an  obscure  corner  of  his  barn,  was  spir¬ 
ited  away  to  Canada.  James  believed — 
and  in  this  differed  from  nearly  all  his 
Methodist  brethren,  to  their  great  grief 
and  shame — in  the  rights  of  the  slave-hol¬ 
der  as  determined  by  the  Dred  Scott  de¬ 
cision;  but  he  did  not  allow  himself  to 
know,  nor  his  boys,  that  when  the  Squire’s 
barn  or  cellar  were  likely  to  be  searched, 
there  was  a  similar  place  in  his  barn,  pro¬ 
vided  without  his  knowledge,  where  a 
fugitive  might  find  safety,  and  often  did. 
Had  he  known  it,  he  would  have  told  the 
sheriff,  if  asked;  but  he  made  it  a  point 
never  to  know. 

Many  a  long  winter  evening  have  I  been 
an  eager  listener  to  the  arguments  of  these 
men  on  Divine  Sovereignty  and  free  will, 


i8o 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


on  election  and  reprobation,  on  tariff  and 
and  free  trade,  or  whatever  subject  might 
come  up.  I  have  always  admired  the  dig¬ 
nity  and  courtesy  which  these  old  men 
showed  to  each  other  in  their  discussions, 
the  one  never  speaking  until  the  other 
was  through;  and  I  have  since  observed 
that  gentlemen  of  the  highest  breeding 
and  most  perfect  manners,  wherever  I 
have  found  them,  do  the  same.  The 
Squire  used  to  close  up  his  argument  on 
tariff  something  in  this  way: 

“What  is  the  use,  James,  of  importing  a 
single  ton  of  iron?  Don’t  you  see  that  in 
importing  it  from  abroad  we  are  import¬ 
ing  the  ore,  the  coal,  the  labor,  and  the 
food  that  it  costs  to  support  the  laborer 
and  his  teams,  when  we  have  all  these  raw 
materials  lying  around  us  cheaper  than 
any  place  in  the  world?” 

And  James  would  answer,  “Don’t  you 
know,  Squire,  that  every  fall  you  have  to 
come  to  me  for  watermelons  and  sweet 
potatoes  grown  on  my  sandy  bottom,  be¬ 
cause  I  can  grow  them  cheaper  and  better 


THE  BRODHEAD  FAMILY.  l8l 

than  you  can  on  your  heavy  soil?  Why 
not  have  trade  as  free  between  nations  as 
between  states,  and  allow  every  man  to 
buy  where  he  can  buy  the  cheapest,  and 
sell  where  he  can  sell  the  dearest?” 

And  they  would  shake  hands,  wish 
each  other  good  night,  and  in  less  than  a 
week  have  another  set-to  and  go  over  the 
same,  or  similar,  ground  again. 

Many  years  afterwards,  when  I  was  a 
man  grown,  I  met  the  old  Squire,  then 
bent  with  age,  and  we  talked  over  the  past. 
He  told  me  of  the  death  of  James,  and  his 
great  grief  and  loneliness,  spoke  of  the  old 
discussions,  and  pointing  to  the  hub  of  an 
old  wagon  wheel,  with  the  spokes  partly 
broken  off,  the  felley  and  tire  gone,  he 
said:  “You  see  those  ants  on  that  hub. 
They  may  be  discussing  questions  similar 
to  those  James  and  I  used  to  discuss. 
Those  two  little  fellows  may  be  arguing 
whether  the  spokes  starting  in  opposite 
directions  can  ever  meet,  concluding  in 
their  wisdom  that  it  is  impossible,  and  the 
alder,  larger,  and  wiser  ant  may  be  telling 


182 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


them  that  they  know  nothing  at  all;  that 
he  has  traveled  farther,  and  can  assure 
them  that  were  this  wheel  complete,  there 
would  be  a  felley  that  would  bind  all  the 
spokes  together,  and  an  iron  tire  around 
it  that  would  hold  them  fast;  and  that 
seeming  contradictions  may  all  be  har¬ 
monized  in  the  larger  field  of  perfect 
knowledge.  I  have  no  doubt  James  un¬ 
derstands  it  now,  and  that  I  will  soon.” 

I  have  dwelt  long  upon  the  Squire  and 
the  Brodhead  family.  I  want  you  to  know 
them.  You  will  find  this  type  more  or 
less  clearly  defined  in  every  township  and 
county.  In  fact,  I  have  found  it  wherever 
I  have  lived  or  traveled,  and  if  it  were  not 
for  that  type  of  men,  this  country,  and  all 
countries,  would  be  in  a  bad  way.  You 
will  not  always  find  them  as  lovely  in 
character  as  my  old  friend,  the  Squire. 
The  fact  is,  his  grandmother  was  a  Good¬ 
man,  and  there  was  a  fine  blending  of 
these  two  types  in  both  him  and  his  cousin 
James.  Away  back  in  Bible  times,  as 
far  back  as  the  period  of  the  Judges,  they 


THE  BRODHEAD  FAMILY.  I  83 

arc  described  as  men  “having  understand¬ 
ing  of  the  signs  of  the  times  to  know 
what  Israel  ought  to  do.”  They  are  the 
men  who  do  not  lose  'he  r  heads  in  time 
of  danger  to  state  or  nation;  who  take 
broad  views  of  public,  as  well  as  private, 
business,  and  who,  to  use  a  homely  ex¬ 
pression,  “sense  things  up  about  right.” 

They  are  not  always  religious  people. 
I  wish  they  were.  The  difference  between 
them  and  the  Goodmans  is  that  the  Brod- 
heads  think  things  out.  The  Goodmans 
feel  their  way  to  conclusions,  “walk  by 
faith,”  as  it  were,  while  the  Brodheads 
walk  more  or  less  “by  sight.”  A  man 
learns  to  lean  on  his  strongest  faculties. 
If  gifted  with  unusually  clear  perceptions 
and  the  faculty  of  clear  thinking,  he  learns 
to  depend  on  his  own  judgment,  his  rea¬ 
soning  powers;  whereas  if  he  cannot  see 
his  way  clear,  he  falls  back  on  his  intui¬ 
tions  of  right  and  wrong.  The  most  per¬ 
fect  types  of  the  family  see  clearly  enough, 
however,  that  nothing  that  is  morally 
wrong  can  be  intellectually  right;  that  it 


1 84  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

never  pays  in  the  long  run  to  be  dishonest 
or  unfair;  that  there  are  laws  not  of  man’s 
enacting,  that  remorselessly  grind  out  ret¬ 
ribution  to  all  sorts  of  evil  doers,  and 
bring,  in  time,  their  just  reward  to  the 
well  doer. 

The  Brodheads  are  not  all  rich,  by  any 
means.  Few  of  them,  indeed,  are  very 
rich.  You  will  frequently  find  them  hand¬ 
ling  great  enterprises  for  other  people, 
themselves  only  in  moderate  circum¬ 
stances.  It  is  very  seldom,  indeed,  that 
you  will  find  them  poor,  or  even  in  limit¬ 
ed  circumstances,  and  never,  except  when 
some  misfortune  has  happened  them 
which  no  foresight  could  avoid.  They  do 
not  take  kindly  to  what  is  known  as  prac¬ 
tical  politics;  that  is,  to  office  getting  and 
holding.  When  a  Brodhead  and  a  Feath- 
erhead  compete  for  the  first  time  for  nom¬ 
ination  in  any  party,  the  Featherhead  has 
the  better  chance  of  winning,  because  he 
will  do  things  a  Brodhead  will  not  do,  and 
can  be  used  by  designing  men,  which  a 
Brodhead  cannot.  When  you  get  a  Brod- 


THE  BRODHEAD  FAMILY. 


185 


head  into  the  legislature  or  congress,  how¬ 
ever,  and  he  has  a  chance  to  make  a  rec¬ 
ord,  and  the  people  get  to  know  him,  he 
is  likely  to  become  a  statesman  and  stay 
in  office  as  long  as  he  likes. 

The  Brodheads  are  not  always  popular. 
They  are  often  supposed  to  be  aristocratic 
and  exclusive,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
they  will  not  allow  themselves  to  be  “hail- 
fellow-well-met”  with  everybody.  They 
try  to  keep  themselves  out  of  the  dirt, 
that  is  all,  and  I  like  that  feature  of  their 
character.  They  are  often  blunt  in  speech 
and  abrupt  in  manner.  That  is  a  fault. 
They  are  sometimes  blamed  for  not  be¬ 
ing  sufficiently  enthusiastic  in  a  good 
cause,  with  being  deficient  in  holy  zeal  in 
revival  times,  and  political  zeal  during 
heated  campaigns.  There  may  be  ground 
for  criticism,  but  I  have  always  noticed 
that  when  a  real  crisis  comes  in  church  or 
state,  the  men  who  criticise  them  for  lack 
of  zeal,  go  to  them  for  counsel. 

You  see,  I  am  not  sketching  perfection 
in  character.  I  could  not  do  it  if  I  would. 


186  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

It  does  not  exist  on  earth.  I  do  not  set 
the  Brodheads  before  you  as  perfect 
models,  for  they  are  not.  You  will,  how¬ 
ever,  make  a  serious  mistake  if  you  dc  not 
study  them  thoroughly,  and  get  into  close, 
personal  touch  with  them  whenever  you 
can.  They  are  among  the  easiest  of  all 
men  to  approach.  They  know  the  right 
sort  of  a  farm  boy  on  sight  and  take  to 
him  at  once,  It  is  otherwise  with  the 
Featherheads  and  their  near  relatives,  the 
Lightheads.  Keep  away  from  men  of 
these  types.  You  can  do  them  no  good, 
nor  can  they  you.  The  Brodheads  can 
and  will.  Your  future  will  depend  large¬ 
ly  on  the  kind  of  men  with  whom  you 
associate.  Personally,  I  owe  the  Brod¬ 
heads  more  than  I  can  tell  you.  Their 
advice  has  not  always  been  what  I  ex¬ 
pected,  and  they  often  with  me  used  great 
plainness  of  speech  which  sometimes  hurt; 
but  when  I  have  slighted  their  counsels  I 
have  generally  had  occasion  to  regret  it. 
I  predict  that  your  experience  will  not 
differ  very  greatly  from  that  of  your 

Uncle  Henry. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 


TYPES  OF  COMMON  PEOPLE. 

My  Dear  Boy: 

When  I  was  your  age  I  used  to  think 
that  the  people  most  talked  about  favor¬ 
ably  in  the  papers,  and  out  of  them,  were 
those  best  worth  knowing.  The  preacher, 
the  doctor,  the  judge,  (my  mother  was 
always  suspicious  of  lawyers)  the  mem¬ 
bers  of  congress,  were  all  great  men  in  my 
estimation.  I  was  disposed  to  look  upon 
the  very  rich  man  with  something  of  awe. 
You  may,  perhaps,  have  the  same  notions. 
As  I  grew  older  in  years  and  experience 
I  changed  my  opinions  somewhat.  So 
will  you.  I  found  that  the  men  best 
worth  knowing,  the  men  I  could  depend 
upon  to  stand  by  me  in  everything  that 
seemed  to  them  right  and  just,  were  not 
the  smartest  men,  nor  the  richest,  nor  those 


1 88  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

the  newspapers  talked  about,  but  the 
plain,  common  people,  of  whom  there  is 
usually  very  little  public  record  beyond 
the  fact  that  they  were  born,  married,  and 
in  time  died,  leaving  more  or  less  of  an 
estate,  honestly  gathered,  to  be  divided 
among  their  wives  and  children.  They 
do  not,  it  is  true,  seem  to  make  very  much 
stir  in  the  world,  but  if  they  were  taken 
out  of  it,  there  would  not  be  much  left 
that  is  worth  preserving,  and  the  end  of 
all  things  might  about  as  well  come  at 
once.  We  could  get  along  reasonably 
well  with  less  than  half  the  doctors,  with 
one-fourth  the  lawyers,  and  we  might  even 
spare  a  few  of  the  preachers.  We  could 
very  well  spare  about  nine  out  of  ten  of 
our  small  politicians,  and  might  get  along, 
in  a  pinch,  without  the  millionaires;  but 
we  could  not  get  along  without  the  com¬ 
mon  people  who  rent  from  others,  or  own 
their  forties,  eighties,  quarter  sections,  or 
their  modest  homes  in  the  cities;  whose 
daily  toil  sweetens  their  bread,  who  live 
honest  lives,  train  their  families  to  habits 


TYPES  OF  COMMON  PEOPLE.  1 89 

of  thrift  and  economy,  and  who  form  the 
sound  and  honest  core  of  their  church, 
their  political  party,  and,  in  short,  make 
this  nation,  and  all  nations,  great. 

The  sooner  you  know  these  people  and 
get  in  close  touch  with  them,  the  better 
for  you.  They  are  the  real  source  of 
what  we  call  “common  sense,”  which,  out¬ 
side  of  Holy  Writ,  is  the  safest  guide  in 
all  the  affairs  of  life.  If  you  are  ever  to 
retain  permanently  any  position  of  trust 
and  power  that  you  may  secure,  and  thus 
become  a  man  of  wide  and  commanding 
influence,  you  can  do  it  only  by  being 
worthy  of  the  abiding  confidence  of  the 
plain,  common  people.  You  have  heard, 
perhaps,  of  the  advice  President  Lincoln 
gave  to  Governor  Oglesby,  as  follows: 
“Stand  by  the  common  people,  Richard; 
keep  close  to  the  common  people.”  The 
deserved  confidence  which  the  common 
people  had  in  Abraham  Lincoln  was  the 
secret  of  his  great  power;  and  his  ability 
to  retain  that  confidence  in  the  most  try¬ 
ing  times  this  nation  ever  saw,  is  the  most 


I9O  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

convincing  evidence  of  his  supreme  great¬ 
ness  of  soul.  *  It  was  the  faith  of  the  com¬ 
mon  people  in  Horace  Greeley  that  made 
him  the  tribune  of  the  people,  and  that 
gave  the  Tribune  the  regal  power  it  wield¬ 
ed  in  those  days,  so  full  of  peril  to  the  re¬ 
public.  The  common  people  will  hear  any 
man  gladly  who  can  at  once  teach  the 
truth  and  live  it. 

There  are  many  families,  or  types,  of  the 
common  people,  but  when  you  come  to 
study  them  closely,  and  learn  the  secrets 
of  their  lives,  there  are  a  few  traits  that 
stand  out  prominently  and  are  common 
to  almost  every  type.  You  will  discover 
that  they  are  honest,  not  merely  in  their 
private  affairs,  but  in  their  convictions  on 
matters  of  public  concern  as  well, — hon¬ 
est,  not  because  it  pays  to  be  honest,  (for 
this  is  not  honesty  at  all,  but  merely  en¬ 
lightened  selfishness),  but  because  hones¬ 
ty  is  right,  and  was  for  ages  before  Moses 
voiced  the  principles  of  honesty  in  the 
Ten  Commandments.  They  are  truthful, 
not  because  truth  has  a  high  commercial 


TYPES  OF  COMMON  PEOPLE.  1 9 1 

value — which  it  certainly  has — but  be¬ 
cause  untruthfulness  is  eternally  wrong 
and  utterly  evil.  The  common  people,  as 
a  rule,  resent  wrong  and  injustice,  despise 
the  despot,  and  loathe  the  liar.  They  be¬ 
lieve  in  their  church,  in  the  principles  of 
their  party,  in  plain  speaking,  right-doing, 
in  good,  honest  men,  and  in  honest  work 
well  done.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  they  are 
perfect,  for  perfection  does  not  exist  in 
this  world,  nor  that  they  cannot  be  de¬ 
ceived  or  misled  for  the  time  by  designing 
men,  nor  that  they  always  recognize  their 
best  friends  at  first  sight;  but  that  at  heart 
they  mean  right,  and  aim  to  stand  for  all 
that  is  best  and  purest  in  our  civilization. 
I  had  rather  plead  a  just  cause  before  the 
plain,  common  people,  than  before  any 
court  in  Christendom,  however  learned. 

I  wish  you  to  know  these  common  peo¬ 
ple,  not  merely  because  they  have  been 
good  to  me  all  my  life,  and  have  always 
stood  by  me  in  time  of  trouble,  but  be¬ 
cause  they  are  in  themselves  better  worth 
your  study  than  any  other  class,  or  all 


192 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


other  classes  put  together.  Take,  for  ex¬ 
ample,  my  old  friend,  Hodge  Plowman.  I 
do  not  know  whether  “Hodge”  was  the 
name  his  mother  gave  him  or  not.  I  sus¬ 
pect  that  he  was  called  “Hodge”  for  the 
same  reason  that  we  called  his  Irish  neigh¬ 
bor  “Pat,”  and  his  Scotch  neighbor 
“Sandy.”  He  was  an  Englishman,  a  farm 
laborer  in  his  native  country,  and  never 
seemed  to  know  exactly  how  to  handle 
his  h’s.  If  he  did  not  know  where  to  put 
his  h’s  every  time,  he  did  know  how  to 
handle  the  plow,  and  no  man  in  the  neigh¬ 
borhood  could  draw  a  straighter  furrow, 
nor  one  more  uniform  in  depth  and  width. 
He  used  to  say  to  me  that  a  bad  man 
could  not  do  good  plowing;  that  it  was 
not  bad  luck  that  was  the  matter  with  the 
crops,  but  crooked  furrows  of  uneven 
depth  and  width;  and  since  I  have  looked 
into  the  science  of  the  matter,  I  believe 
Hodge  was  at  least  partly  right.  No  man 
could  build  a  stack,  whether  grain,  hay, 
straw,  or  even  corn  fodder,  that  could 
equal  Hodge  Plowman’s.  I  used  to  tell 


TYPES  OF  COMMON  PEOPLE. 


193 


him  it  was  a  waste  of  time  to  stack  with 
such  care  and  precision,  and  he  would  say: 
“What  is  time  given  us  for  but  to  do 
things  right?  I  could  not  sleep  of  nights 
if  my  work  was  not  well  done.” 

These  may  seem  to  you  small  matters, 
but  I  have  always  found  that  he  that  is 
“faithful  in  the  least,  is  faithful  also  in 
much;  and  he  that  is  unjust  in  the  least, 
is  unjust  also  in  much;”  and  that  it  is  al¬ 
ways  well  to  know,  admire,  imitate,  and 
win  the  confidence  of  the  man  who  does 
everything  as  if  the  Lord  had  His  eye  on 
him  all  the  time.  You  will  not  often  find 
that  sort  of  men  very  far  wrong  on  any  of 
the  great  questions  of  life. 

I  would  like  you  to  know  my  Scandin¬ 
avian  friend,  Ole  Oleson.  You  will  find 
men  of  his  type  in  almost  every  township 
in  the  West.  For  your  benefit  I  have 
coaxed  him  to  tell  me  the  story  of  his  life. 
When  he  and  his  young  wife,  in  coming 
to  this  country,  reached  the  last  station 
on  the  railroad,  he  had  but  ten  cents  left 
and  a  hundred  miles  to  travel  to  the  home 


*94 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


of  the  only  man  he  knew  in  all  this  broad 
land.  They  invested  that  ten  cents  in 
bread,  and  started  out  on  foot.  They  got 
there  some  way,  as  resolute  folks  gen¬ 
erally  do,  hired  out,  and  in  time  had 
money  enough  to  enter  a  quarter  section 
of  government  land.  They  built  a  sod 
house,  in  due  time  earned  enough  to  buy 
household  furniture  and  a  cow,  and  had 
to  wait  until  the  cow  brought  them  two 
steer  calves,  and  until  they  were  old 
enough  to  work,  before  Ole  could  have  a 
a  team  of  his  own.  It  was  eight  long 
years  before  he  could  walk  behind  a  plow 
drawn  by  a  team  of  his  own  horses.  To¬ 
day  he  has  nearly  three  hundred  acres  of 
land  all  his  own,  no  mortgage,  well  im¬ 
proved,  has  a  good  lot  in  town,  hard  by 
the  church  of  his  choice — the  Lutheran — 
where  he  expects  to  build  a  comfortable 
home  in  case  he  should  ever  want  to  leave 
the  farm,  has  educated  two  sons  for  the 
professions,  has  a  third  for  a  partner  on 
the  farm,  is  a  magistrate,  has  been  county 
supervisor,  and  is  a  man  whose  friendship 


TYPES  OF  COMMON  PEOPLE. 


195 


and  influence,  political  and  otherwise,  is 
well  worth  having.  There  are  plenty  of 
men  of  this  type  everywhere,  and  they  are 
well  worth  your  knowing.  I  had  rather 
have  the  confidence  of  a  man  of  this  sort, 
than  that  of  hundreds  who  make  their 
living  by  looking  after  soft  snaps;  by  tak¬ 
ing  mean  advantage  of  others  in  their  mis¬ 
fortunes,  or,  to  use  their  own  phrase,  “liv¬ 
ing  by  their  wits.” 

You  should  know  my  friend,  Sandy 
McGregor,  or  some  of  his  kin  folks,  whom 
you  will  run  across  before  you  are  much 
older.  Sandy  was  a  shepherd  lad  when 
he  left  Scotland,  and  brought  with  him  a 
genuine  love  for  oatmeal  porridge,  and  a 
good  understanding  of  the  Shorter  Cate¬ 
chism,  which  two  taken  together,  I  have 
always  observed,  make  a  well  balanced 
ration  when  you  are  feeding  for  brains, 
muscle  and  morals.  Sandy  was  poor,  but 
none  the  less  hopeful  and  happy  for  all 
that.  He  was  used  to  it.  He  went  to 
work  at  the  first  job  that  offered,  which 
was  tending  bricklayers,  won  the  confi- 


I96  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

dence  of  the  boss  of  the  job,  who  speedily 
offered  him  something  better  than  the 
hod;  kept  right  on  until  he  got  money 
enough  ahead  to  buy  a  team  and  farming 
outfit.  He  rented  land  and  finally  fas¬ 
tened  on  an  eighty  of  good  land,  wrought 
hard  and  saved,  until  he  had  it  paid  for. 
I  have  often  observed  that  the  Sandy 
McGregor  know  good  land  when  they 
see  it,  and  it  is  not  worthwhile  to  look  for 
them  in  a  country  naturally  poor.  You 
would  do  well  to  know  the  Sandy  Mc¬ 
Gregors  pretty  thoroughly.  They  are 
good  troops  when  you  need  help,  but  I 
would  advise  you  not  to  argue  with  them 
on  any,  and  especially  a  religious,  subject 
on  which  you  are  not  thoroughly  posted. 
They  are  apt  to  be  a  bit  blunt  in  speech, 
and  may  even  take  delight  in  setting  your 
sins  in  order  before  you;  but  they  like  you 
none  the  less  for  all  that.  They  will  sel¬ 
dom  tell  you  how  much  they  think  of  you. 
In  fact,  I  have  heard  that  they  never  tell 
that  even  to  their  wives  and  children.  If 
I  had  the  making  of  the  Sandy  McGregors 


TYPES  OF  COMMON  PEOPLE. 


197 


I  would  put  a  little  more  sweetening  in 
them,  and  plane  off  some  of  the  rough 
edges;  but  then,  we  have  to  take  people 
as  we  find  them,  and  we  can  well  excuse 
a  little  plain  speaking  if  behind  it  all  there 
is  a  heart  as  tender  as  a  woman’s,  and  a 
profound  reverence  for  the  Supreme  Be¬ 
ing,  whom  alone  Sandy  recognizes  as  Lord 
of  his  conscience. 

Then,  there  is  my  old  friend,  Hans 
Schmidt.  You  should  “stand  in”  with  him 
and  his  kin  folks,  which  you  can  do 
best  by  practicing  his  virtues,  and  by  deal¬ 
ing  with  him  on  honor.  You  can  dicker, 
if  you  like,  with  Sandy  McGregor,  for  he 
rather  likes  the  keen  encounter  of  wits  in 
fixing  prices.  He  knows  what  he  is  going 
to  take  before  hand,  and  you  know  what 
you  will  give,  and  there  is  some  amuse¬ 
ment  after  all  in  dickering;  but  you  had 
better  make  but  one  price  in  your  deaiing 
with  Hans.  Hans  is  a  hard  worker,  pa¬ 
tient,  tireless,  economical,  a  man  of  deep 
affections,  and  delights  as  much  as  any 
man  I  ever  knew  in  his  home  life.  He  is 


I98  LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 

a  good  liver  when  he  can  afford  it,  and 
knows  how  to  live  economically  when  he 
must.  When  you  once  get  his  confidence 
he  is  your  steadfast  friend;  but  woe  be  to 
you  if  you  forfeit  that  confidence  by  any 
sort  of  trickery  or  deception,  either  in 
word  or  deed. 

Nor  would  I  have  you  forget  Patrick 
Maloney,  and  his  ilk.  His  great-great¬ 
grandfather  and  mine  used  to  enjoy  crack¬ 
ing  each  other’s  skulls  on  Fair  days,  and 
at  other  times,  over  politics  and  religion. 
Pat’s  ancestor  thought  mine  was  a  robber, 
and  a  heretic;  and  my  ancestor  thought 
Pat’s  was  a  “bloodthirsty  Papist,”  who 
would  burn  him  at  the  stake,  if  he  could, 
and  so  they  had  it  out  with  each  other 
whenever  they  had  a  chance,  and  from 
what  I  can  learn,  they  seldom  lacked,  or 
neglected  to  improve,  an  opportunity. 
Mr.  Maloney  and  I  often  talk  these 
matters  over,  and  we  understand  each 
other,  and  give  each  other  credit  for  sin¬ 
cerity  and  good  intentions,  even  if  we  do 
not  always  agree.  He  honestly  thinks  my 


TYPES  OF  COMMON  PEOPLE. 


199 


religion  is  too  much  of  a  head  religion, 
and  I  am  sometimes  inclined  to  think  he 
is  about  half  right.  I  think,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  he  is  inclined  to  take  too  much 
for  granted,  and  relies  too  much  on  out¬ 
ward  forms.  But  we  are  both  good- 
humored  about  it,  and  talk  much  less 
about  that  than  some  other  things  on 
which  we  are  entirely  agreed.  For  exam¬ 
ple,  we  are  both  agreed  in  our  hatred  of 
oppression  and  tyranny  of  every  kind; 
we  believe  in  honest  dealing  and  fair  play; 
we  both  applaud  when  Sandy  McGregor 
sings  his  favorite  song,  “A  man’s  a  man  for 
a’  that,  and  a’  that,”  and  I  assure  you  that 
you  will  find  no  better  friends  in  the  world 
than  the  Patrick  Maloneys,  if  you  stand 
firmly  for  the  rights  of  the  common  peo¬ 
ple,  and  your  own. 

There  is  another  large  class  of  our 
native  common  people  whom  you  should 
know  intimately  and  thoroughly.  You 
will  not  only  lose  much  by  not  knowing 
them,  but  their  history  will  furnish  you 
material  for  a  lifetime  of  study.  I  mean 


200 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


that  very  large  combination  of  several 
types  whose  ancestors  from  time  to  time 
sought  in  the  wilds  of  the  then  new  coun¬ 
try  refuge,  not  from  grinding  poverty,  but 
from  oppression  in  various  forms;  who 
sought  in  the  republic,  not  worldly  gain, 
but  religious  freedom.  In  their  various 
original  types  they  were  the  Puritans, 
whose  ancestors  fought  with  Cromwell 
and  gave  England  civil  liberty;  the  Hugue¬ 
nots,  of  France,  of  whom  Milton  sang, 
“Avenge,  O  Lord,  thy  slaughtered  saints;” 
the  devout  Protestants,  of  the  Netherlands; 
the  Scotch  and  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians, 
who  for  ages  had  never  been  so  happy  as 
when  fighting  for  a  good  cause,  and  who 
blazed  the  way  in  the  forests  north  and 
south,  and  brought  with  them  the  log  col¬ 
lege,  as  well  as  the  church  and  school- 
house;  and  the  Quakers,  the  men  who 
were  wont  to  listen  to  the  monitions  of 
the  inward  voice,  and  were  as  thoroughly 
men  of  peace  as  the  last  named  were  men 
of  war.  One  hundred  and  fifty  years  and 
more  of  the  enjoyment  of  civil  and  relig- 


TYPES  OF  COMMON  PEOPLE. 


201 


ious  liberty  have  welded  all  these  and 
other  kindred  types  into  a  native,  or  pecu¬ 
liarly  American  type,  the  molding  and 
dominating  type  among  the  native  com¬ 
mon  people,  and  which  seems  by  an  irre- 
sistable  power  to  take  hold  of  and  assimil¬ 
ate  Hodge,  Ole,  Sandy,  Pat,  Hans,  and 
whoever  else  may  come,  to  digest,  so  to 
speak,  every  type  that  seeks,  for  any  rea¬ 
son,  to  share  the  blessings  which  Provi¬ 
dence  has  showered  on  this  broad  land, 
absorbing  their  virtues  and  casting  off 
their  vices.  Especially  is  this  type  the 
controlling,  dominating  force  in  the  rural 
districts  where  the  common,  everyday 
virtues  grow  and  thrive  better  than  in  the 
glare  and  noise  of  the  more  public  life  of 
the  great  cities. 

It  is  the  homes  of  these  common  people, 
native  and  foreign,  that  have  ever  been 
the  nurseries  of  the  men  who  have  made 
this  nation  great,  and  guided  it  through 
all  its  perils,  and  all  the  more  easily  be¬ 
cause  the  great  leaders  that  have  been 
brought  up  in  these  homes  have  kept 


202 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


themselves  in  close  touch  and  entire  sym¬ 
pathy  with  the  men  who  make  upthe“town 
meeting/’  as  the  New  Englanders  would 
say,  or,  as  we  say  in  the  West,  the  town¬ 
ship  primary. 

So  long  as  you  stay  on  the  farm  you 
will  find  it  all  important  to  your  happiness 
and  success  to  have  the  confidence  of  all 
that  is  best  in  country  life.  If  you  go  into 
business  or  the  professions,  you  will  find 
that  confidence  a  tower  of  strength,  and  if 
you  ever  enter  upon  a  public  career,  you 
will  sooner  or  later  be  undone  without  it. 
You  may  fool  the  common  people  once 
or  twice;  you  may  sell  their  confidence 
to  their  foes,  but  you  cannot  fool  them 
always;  and  whenever  they  find  you  out, 
as  they  will,  you  are  undone  forever,  and 
may  look  upon  their  verdict  as  a  fore¬ 
taste  of  the  retribution  which  a  just  and 
righteous  God  inflicts  sooner  or  later  on 
those  of  whom  it  is  said:  “Their  foot  shall 
slide  in  due  time.” 


Uncle  Henry. 


CHAPTER  XVIIL 

THE  GOOD  MAN. 

My  Dear  Boy: 

In  examining  a  piece  of  machinery 
which  you  have  never  before  seen,  neither 
have  read  nor  heard  of,  the  first  question 
that  arises  in  your  mind  is:  what  is  it  good 
for?  What  was  the  object  of  the  inventor 
in  designing  it,  and  the  builder  in  making 
it?  The  question  will  sooner  or  later 
arise  in  your  mind,  if  it  has  not  already, 
as  to  what  this  world  is  good  for.  What 
was  the  final  and  ultimate  object  of  the 
Creator,  to  use  the  language  of  the  Scrip¬ 
tures,  in  founding  it  upon  the  floods,  in 
stretching  over  it  the  firmament,  in  water¬ 
ing  it  with  showers,  in  storing  it  writh  fuel 
and  minerals,  in  planting  it  with  grains 
and  fruits  and  weeds,  healthful  and  poi¬ 
sonous,  in  stocking  it  with  beasts  and 


204 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


birds,  helpful  and  hurtful,  in  giving  it 
every  variety  of  climate  and  scenery,  and 
every  combination  of  soil,  from  total  bar¬ 
renness  to  the  most  lavish  fertility,  and 
in  constantly  guiding  it  and  controlling  it 
through  all  the  ages? 

We  know  of  but  one  answer  that  can 
be  rightly  made,  namely,  this  world  was 
made,  and  is  now  governed  for  the  pro¬ 
duction  of  the  good  man — the  man  whose 
ideas  of  justice,  mercy,  and  of  truth  are  a 
more  or  less  distinct  reflection  of  Him  who 
is  Justice,  Mercy  and  Truth;  whose  ten¬ 
derness,  thoughtfulness,  and  compassion 
are  a  reflection,  however  dim,  of  the  ten¬ 
derness,  thoughtfulness  and  compassion 
of  Almighty  God.  If  this  be  not  the  ob¬ 
ject  in  view  in  the  creation  and  govern¬ 
ment  of  this  world,  then  it  seems  to  me  to 
be  a  horrible  mistake  and  a  pitiable  fail¬ 
ure.  If  this  be  the  object,  then  you  will 
be  co-worker  and  helper  with  the  Power 
that  is  above  and  behind  all  things,  if  it  be 
the  supreme  aim  of  your  life  to  be  a  good 
man,  to  form  a  character  that  will  be  a  re- 


THIS  GOOD  MAN. 


205 


flection  of  the  Character  which  guides  and 
controls  all  things  below,  and  to  do  this 
right  thing,  and  avoid  that  wrong,  not  for 
appearance  sake,  nor  for  profit,  nor  for 
even  an  example  to  others,  but  because  of 
its  bearing  on  the  formation  of  your  own 
character. 

A  good  man,  like  all  other  things  es¬ 
teemed  good,  has  many  counterfeits.  I 
would  not  have  you  become  in  the  slight¬ 
est  degree,  the  goody-goody  man,  the  man 
who  is  so  weak  in  intellect,  or  deficient  in 
force  of  character,  so  lacking  in  manliness 
that  he  is  in  no  man’s  way,  who  in  one 
way  or  other  constantly  parades  his  imag¬ 
ined  goodness  and  demands  your  admira¬ 
tion.  The  sun  needs  no  placard  announc¬ 
ing,  “This  is  the  sun.”  The  man  who  finds 
it  necessary  to  tell  you  that  he  is  a  good 
man,  will  need  constant  watching.  He 
knows  that  he  is  not  to  be  trusted,  and  in 
professing  superior  goodness,  when  his 
goodness  is  not  called  in  question,  he  is 
simply  aiming  to  smother  the  suspicion, 
constantly  arising  in  his  own  mind,  that  he 
is  at  heart  a  rogue. 


206 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


I  would  have  you  constantly  on  your 
guard  against  that  hoary  old  hypocrite 
who  has  made  an  idol  of  some  creed  or 
confession,  and  stands  ready  to  denounce 
all  who  do  not  believe  in  it  as  beyond  the 
possibility  of  redemption,  whose  goodness 
consists  in  bewailing  the  sins  of  others, 
and  who,  if  occupying  a  position'  in  a 
church  or  society,  is  ready  to  pounce  with 
almost  savage  delight  on  some  young  man 
or  woman  who  has  sinned  or  gone  wrong, 
as  though  he  himself  were  sinless.  When 
a  lot  of  these  gray-haired  scoundrels 
brought  a  real  sinner  before  the  only  ab¬ 
solutely  good  man  that  ever  lived,  and 
asked  his  judgment,  he  gave  it  to  them  as 
follows:  “Let  him  that  is  without  sin 
among  you,  cast  the  first  stone,”  stoning 
to  death  being  the  legal  penalty.  With¬ 
out  a  word  they  went  out  from  his  pres¬ 
ence,  “beginning  at  the  eldest,”  observing 
even  in  their  defeat  and  confusion  all  the 
forms  of  ecclesiastical  etiquette.  The 
church  suffers  more  to-day  from  this  form 
of  bastard  goodness  than  from  all  the 
cavils  and  scoffs  of  the  infidel. 


THE  GOOD  MAN. 


20 7 


I  have  spent  some  time  in  sketching  for 
your  use  various  types  of  good  men  whom 
it  has  been  my  good  fortune  to  know  per¬ 
sonally  and  intimately  in  the  last  fifty 
years;  some  in  the  lowliest  walks  of  life, 
men  and  women  who  in  straitened  cir¬ 
cumstances,  and  even  in  extreme  poverty, 
were  enabled  by  a  power  not  of  this  world, 
to  maintain  their  honor  and  integrity  un¬ 
spotted,  and  walk  by  a  clear  light,  which 
came  from  neither  sun,  moon  nor  stars, 
and  which  I  can  liken  only  to  the  uncloud¬ 
ed  light  of  the  Divine  Countenance.  Oth¬ 
ers  were  well-to-do  farmers,  living  testi¬ 
monies  in  favor  of  all  things  good,  right, 
and  pure,  who  did  not  need  to  say  that 
there  was  not  a  stain  on  a  dollar  they 
owned.  The  whole  neighborhood  knew 
that.  Others  still,  who,  amid  the  glare  of 
wealth,  and  the  greedy  scramble  for  gain, 
were  living  witnesses  of  the  truth  of  the 
old  saying,  “Godliness  is  profitable  in  all 
things,  having  the  promise  of  the  life  that 
now  is,  and  that  which  is  to  come.”  Still 
others,  amid  all  the  strife  and  contention 


208 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


of  political  life,  have  been  able  to  die 
poor  men  in  order  that  the  common  peo¬ 
ple  of  this  land  might  have  just,  wise  laws, 
faithfully  administered.  Of  these  last  I 
think  it  may  be  said  at  the  last  day,  “These 
have  come  up  out  of  great  tribulation,” 
for  I  verily  believe  that  the  severest  test 
of  character  in  these  modern  times  has 
been  made  when  a  public  man  successful¬ 
ly  overcomes  the  temptation  to  enrich 
himself  in  the  public  service  by  treachery 
to  the  common  people  while  eating  their 
bread. 

Twill  not  show  you  these  sketches  I 
have  made  because  they  all  seem  to  me 
far  short  of  even  my  own  ideal  of  a  good 
man,  and  I  cannot  find  it  in  my  heart  to 
point  out  to  you  why  and  wherein  they 
failed,  as  they  each  have  in  some  respect. 
Rather  would  I  point  out  to  you  the  only 
perfect  Life  that  has  ever  been  lived  on 
this  planet,  and  ask  you  to  take  your  ideal 
from  that,  and  reverence  every  man  in  the 
proportion  that  he  has  realized  in  his  life 
that  perfect  ideal.  If  I  were  to  define  the 


THE  GOOD  MAN. 


209 


good  man  in  words,  I  would  say  that  he  is 
the  man  who  sincerely  believes  in  a  just, 
and  therefore  merciful,  God,  and  who 
does  his  best  every  day  of  his  life,  whether 
in  a  high  position,  or  a  low,  to  do  His  will. 
I  base  goodness  on  right  convictions,  and 
I  do  not  know  of  any  other  source  of  right 
convictions  than  faith  in  the  Supreme  Ruler 
of  this  world.  There  is  a  superficial  good¬ 
ness,  not  consciously  simulated,  that  is  a 
matter  of  habit,  of  good  surroundings  and 
associations,  of  environment,  so  to  speak, 
which  readily  passes  for  the  genuine  until 
it  is  severely  tried,  and  then  it  usually  fails 
utterly.  I  have  ever  found  in  my  life  that 
the  man  who  has  no  genuine  convictions 
anchored  in  something  outside  of  this 
world,  will  not  do  to  “tie  to.”  When  tried 
he  will  be  “like  a  broken  tooth  or  a  foot 
out  of  joint.”  It  is  the  men  who  believe 
in  the  eternal  verities  who  have  secured 
for  themselves  and  for  us  the  rights  and 
liberties  we  enjoy  as  a  people,  and  who 
were  ready  to  die,  and  many  of  whom  did 
die,  that  we  might  enjoy  them. 


210 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


If  I  were  to  define  the  good  man  still 
further,  I  .would  say  he  lives  constantly 
under  oath.  His  word  is  his  oath  because 
always  spoken  under  the  conviction,  more 
or  less  conscious,  “Thou  God  seest  me.” 
His  words  are  spoken  and  acts  done  as  if 
in  the  presence  of  the  Supreme  Ruler,  and 
hence  his  farm,  his  home,  his  place  of 
business,  are  as  sacred  as  the  communion 
table.  You  will  discover  as  you  grow 
older  and  more  experienced,  that  one  of 
the  best  evidences  of  human  goodness  is 
the  manifestation  of  pity  for,  and  charita¬ 
ble  judgment  of,  the  man  or  woman,  and 
especially  of  the  young  man  or  woman, 
who  has  unintentionally  and  without  fore¬ 
thought,  gone  wrong.  It  s  said  of  the 
one  sinless  Being  that  he  could  have  com¬ 
passion  o  the  ignorant  and  those  that 
are  out  of  the  way:  “Who  can  be  touched 
with  the  feeling  of  our  infirmities,  and  was 
tempted  in  all  points  like  as  we  are,  and 
yet  without  sin.” 

The  man  who  is  glad  to  find  sin  , 
others,  thereby  confesses  his  own  sinful- 


THE  GOOD  MAN. 


21 1 


ness.  The  man  who  is  swift  to  condemn, 
and  especially  without  hearing  both  sides, 
plainly  shows  his  lack  of  real  goodness. 
Every  man  who  is  striving  to  walk  in  the 
paths  of  uprightness,  will  have  genuine 
pity  for  those  who  have  striven  and  failed. 
Every  man  who  knows  the  dangers  that 
lurk  in  the  path  of  the  young  man  or  wo¬ 
man,  who  knows  how  easy  it  is  to  sin  with¬ 
out  intending  it,  who  knows  something  of 
the  power  of  inherited  evil,  and  who  has 
seen  a  little  of  the  inexpressible  cruelty 
and  heartlessness  of  what  Burns  calls  the 
“unco’  guid,”  or  the  overmuch  good,  man, 
will,  if  he  be  a  good  man  and  true,  cover 
up  the  fault,  and  try  to  lift  the  fallen. 

A  young  peasant  girl,  barefoot,  and 
plainly  but  neatly  dressed,  was  once 
brought  before  a  Scotch  session  for  the 
sin  of  joining  in  a  simple  country  dance. 
The  elders  dealt  out  to  the  poor  child  the 
terrors  of  the  law,  until  she  burst  into 
tears,  when  the  old  preacher,  who  had 
been  a  country  lad  himself,  said:  “Jennie, 
were  ye  thinking  o’  anything  wrang  when 


212 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


ye  danced?”  “Indeed,  I  was  not.”  “Then, 
Jennie,  my  child,  aye  dance.” 

If  I  were  to  give  you  an  infallible  sign 
of  a  good  man,  I  would  say  that  he  is  the 
man,  who,  while  holding  himself  rigidly 
to  the  highest  standard  of  living,  yet  deals 
with  the  greatest  leniency  with  those  who 
have  sinned.  He  draws  sharp  and  clear 
the  distinction  between  the  wrong  and 
the  wrongdoer.  Instead  of  trying  to 
crush  those  who  have  fallen  in  the  strife, 
he  aims  to  place  their  feet  in  the  right 
path,  saying  in  the  words  of  the  Master, 
“Go,  and  sin  no  more.” 

Do  not  think  I  am  preaching  you  a  ser¬ 
mon,  for  I  am  not.  I  have  written  you 
much  in  these  letters  regarding  the  con¬ 
duct  of  your  life  on  its  secular,  or  worldly, 
side.  I  wish  you  to  succeed  in  every 
praiseworthy  and  right  thing;  to  make 
money  on  the  farm,  or  off  it,  if  you  pre¬ 
fer  that;  to  have  you  honored  by  your 
fellow-men;  but  above  all,  I  would  like 
you  to  be  a  good  man,  not  merely  for 
your  own  sake,  but  because  the  world 


THE  GOOD  MAN. 


213 


needs  good  men  much  more  than  it  needs 
either  rich  men  or  great  men.  I  would 
like  you  to  be  a  good  man  in  the  truest 
sense  of  the  word;  a  man  who  is  not  only 
on  the  right  side  of  all  public  questions, 
but  right  in  all  his  dealings,  in  his  influ¬ 
ence  at  home,  and  away  from  home,  for 
the  reason  that  the  final,  perfect  and  com¬ 
plete  harvest  which  this  world  yields  to  the 
hand  of  its  Maker,  is  a  crop  of  good  men 
and  women.  I  would  like  you  to  be  one 
of  the  sheaves,  and  not  a  weed  to  be  de¬ 
stroyed. 

I  think  most  farm  boys  sincerely  desire 
to  be  good  men.  The  trouble  is  that  they 
do  not  know  just  how  to  go  about  it. 
How  do  you  learn  to  plow  if  not  by  plow¬ 
ing?  You  may  read  about  plowing  for 
months,  you  may  watch  other  men  plow, 
but  you  will  never  learn  to  plow  except 
by  plowing.  The  man  who  made  the 
plow  may  tell  you  all  about  the  construc¬ 
tion  of  it,  and  how  to  mend  it  when  out  ot 
repair.  That  will  a  great  help  provid¬ 
ed  you  plow;  otherwise  not.  He  who  has 


214 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


made  you  has  told  you  what  you  must  do 
to  be  a  good  man.  You  will  find  it  in  the 
one  book  of  all  others  which  we  call  the 
Bible,  or  the  Book;  but  you  will  never 
understand  a  precept  of  that  Book  rightly 
except  by  the  doing  of  it.  You  can  do  it 
best  right  at  home,  by  showing  respect 
and  obedience  to  your  father  and  mother, 
kindness  to  your  brothers  and  sisters,  by 
doing  good,  conscientious  work  on  the 
farm,  and  standing  for  right  things  among 
the  boys.  You  can  set  yourself  to  think¬ 
ing  and  doing  those  things,  the  doing  of 
which  forms  the  right  character.  You 
will  not  go  far  on  these  lines  until  you 
feel  the  need  of  that  Elder  Brother  who 
is  revealed  to  you,  and  to  me,  as  the  ideal 
Man,  which  is  God  manifest  in  the  flesh, 
who,  as  the  Divine  Man,  has  made  atone¬ 
ment,  once  for  all,  for  your  sin  and  mine, 
and  you  will  find  in  Him  a  never-failing 
Helper.  You  cannot  commit  your  all  to 
Him  and  enlist  in  His  service  too  soon. 

You  will  get  help  from  unexpected 
sources  when  you  need  it;  seldom  before 


THE  GOOD  MAN. 


215 


you  need  it.  I  believe  it  to  be  everlast¬ 
ingly  true  that  “the  steps  of  a  good  man 
are  ordered  by  the  Lord,  and  he  delight- 
eth  in  his  way.”  By  this  I  understand 
that  not  only  do  the  laws  of  this  world 
work,  in  the  end,  for  righteousness  in  a 
general  way,  but  that  there  is  an  Overrul¬ 
ing  Providence  that  shapes  and  marks 
out  the  path  of  one  who  is  sincerely  aim¬ 
ing  and  striving  to  be  a  good  man,  and 
guides  his  steps  therein.  I  believe  with 
David,  that  “Though  he  [the  good  man] 
fall,  he  will  not  be  cast  down  utterly,  be¬ 
cause  the  Lord  upholds  him  mightily  with 
His  right  hand.”  I  believe  the  Father  in 
his  wise  providence,  deals  with  good  men 
more  severely,  if  they  do  wrong,  than  he 
does  with  evil  men,  and  that  because  he 
loves  them  better;  that  bad  men  will  be 
allowed  to  prosper  for  a  time  in  certain 
courses  where  good  men  would  fail;  just 
as  a  father  would  punish  his  son  for  doing 
things  which  he  would  no  more  than  re¬ 
buke  in  the  son  of  a  neighbor.  We  often 
see  this  principle  illustrated,  even  in  mod- 


210 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


ern  politics.  A  good  man  who  has  done 
wrong  and  made  a  mistake  is  left  at  home; 
and  a  scoundrel  who  has  done  the  same 
thing,  and  others  ten  times  worse,  is  given 
office  in  his  stead.  It  is  strange,  but  it  is 
not  all  wrong,  Good  men  who  go  wrong 
deserve  punishment.  The  Lord  will  at¬ 
tend  to  the  scoundrels  when  he  gets  ready. 
No  man,  however,  will  ever  go  far  wrong 
if  he  takes  counsel  with  his  conscience, 
and  uses  that  Word  which  “is  a  lamp  unto 
his  feet  and  a  light  unto  his  path.”  If  you 
are  in  doubt  as  to  whether  a  thing  is  right, 
don’t  do  it. 

Instead  of  being  a  hindrance  to  you  in 
business,  as  you  may  at  first  suppose,  and 
and  as  many  would  have  you  suppose,  the 
character  which  I  have  urged  you  to  form 
will  help  you  in  the  most  wonderful  way. 
There  is  not  now,  nor  has  there  ever  been, 
enough  of  boys  who  live  and  work  on 
this  high  plane  and  follow  these  exalt¬ 
ed  ideals  to  supply  the  demand.  Almost 
every  great  enterprise  of  any  kind  is  con¬ 
stantly  on  the  lookout  for  this  type  of 


THE  GOOD  MAN. 


217 


character,  and  for  the  all-sufficient  reason 
that  great  undertakings  can  be  safely  en¬ 
trusted  to  no  other.  I  have  seen  conspic¬ 
uous  ability  and  untiring  energy  fail  utter¬ 
ly  when  not  accompanied  by  that  high 
moral  character,  that  unbending  integrity, 
characteristic  of  the  good  man,  as  I  have 
described  him.  All  great  enterprises  and 
undertakings  depend  for  their  success  on 
the  faith  or  confidence  of  the  public  in 
the  men  who  control  them.  Unless  these 
men  have  those  traits  of  character  that 
will  win  and  retain  confidence,  failure,  in 
time,  is  inevitable.  There  is  nothing, 
therefore,  in  the  end  that  pays  such  high 
dividends,  even  in  this  life,  as  old-fash¬ 
ioned  righteousness,  or  uprighteousness, 
which  is  a  peculiar  characteristic  of  the 
good  man. 

I  desire,  above  all  things  else,  that  you 
be  a  good  man.  The  good  man  is  of  the 
seed  royal  of  the  universe,  the  golden  har¬ 
vest,  the  ripened  fruitage  of  creation. 
For  him  the  deep  foundations  of  the  world 
were  laid.  For  him  the  ages  have  been 


218 


LETTERS  TO  THE  FARM  BOY. 


preparing.  For  his  redemption  “the  Word 
was  made  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us/'  and 
the  cross  erected  on  Calvary.  For  his 
perfection  is  all  the  work,  the  toil,  the 
pain  and  suffering  among  men,  and  when, 
chastened  by  experience,  and  ripened  by 
the  wisdom  which  years  only  can  give,  he 
enters  the  house  prepared  for  him.  And 
for  which  he  has  been  prepared,  its  doors 
will  spring  open  of  their  own  accord,  and 
he  will  be  welcomed  by  all  that  is  good, 
beautiful  and  true  in  the  universe  of  God. 

Uncle  Henry. 


the  END, 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS-URBANA 


3  0112  075978277 


